Ice Sky
by Discover09
Summary: First FanFic so I appologise in advance. Lydia finds herself completely obsessed with a boy who recently started at her school. There seems to be something different about him and his siblings but Lydia can't put her finger on what it is.
1. Communication

AN: As it says in the summary this is my first FanFic, I read Twilight and it inspired me to write. I appologise if it feels like I have copied Twilight and just changed the names, thats not what I was trying to do. I hope you like it, if you don't I'm sorry but I'm not forcing you to read it, If you do then great, either way it would be really nice to hear what people think so please review.

Enjoy...

* * *

It was the start of the new school year and the summer break had not had the effect I thought it would have, I had gone away on holiday with my family for the entire six weeks. We always go on holiday any chance we can get; I live in the most boring place in the world as far as weather is concerned – England. So since we don't get any extremes of weather, just rain, rain and more rain, we make the most of holidays, during the summer we find the sun, and during the winter we find the snow. This summer we had been in LA, America, it had been so hot over there, it was a culture shock to be back with the rain.

I had not had any contact with anyone back home for all of that time. This, I had decided, would be the best way to forget about him. Before the summer I had been so obsessed with Michael it had been almost unhealthy - I had worked out which lessons he had each day and where I could find him every minute that I didn't have to spend in a classroom listening to the teachers mind-numbing lessons, although I spent most of my time in those lessons daydreaming about Michael (this didn't help my end of year test results, but I couldn't stop myself, I am quite smart so I was able to blag it!)

However now that a new year had started, I was still as obsessed if not more than I was before the summer, and everyone had been given a new timetable, it meant I would have to start the process of memorizing where Michael would be all over again. However the timetable change wasn't all bad news, it meant I at least had some lessons with him, four to be exact - four more than last year. But I wondered how long it would take me to remember his timetable this year. When I had started learning his classes last year, I had made a grave mistake in the first week, one that I had promised myself I would not make this time, I had been so intent on his next lesson I had gone to it rather than my own, it had only been when I opened the door to see a teacher I did not recognise that I had realised I was in the wrong place.

***

It was the end of break time on Thursday and I walked to my next class trying very hard to spot where Michael was headed. I couldn't see him, and this made me walk even slower to history, it was my first lesson of history this year, and I was not looking forward to it. I hated history; I could never remember the important dates. It was bad enough trying to remember birthdays of people I knew well, so it was near impossible for me to remember the date Henry VII had become king, or when World War I had started! There was only one date I had never forgotten; the day Michael had started at this school, 15th May.

I was barely walking faster than a tortoise when my heart skipped a beat, there was Michael walking just in front of me, I decided I would have to find out where he was headed next and write that down on the moderately blank timetable I had sketched in the 'notes' section at the back of my diary that I was filling with all of Michael's lessons. It was practically empty due to the fact this was only the third day back after the summer holidays – Monday had been a teacher training day, so I had not had enough time to follow him completely. I was contemplating walking right up to him and casually asking him what lesson he had next. But I decided this would not be a good idea, firstly because whenever I saw him my throat dried out as if some one had stolen all the moisture in it and had put a beach ball in the middle of it, secondly because I don't do casual, can't, I seem to be unable of acting casual, but mainly because in the term that he had been here so far I had barely ever said 'hello' to him, surely he would think it very odd if I just walked over to him now and asked him where he was headed as if we actually knew each other.

While I was having this debate in my head I saw him stop suddenly and turn, for a moment I thought he was going to turn a complete 180 and walk back the way he had just come, but he only turned half of what I expected him to and opened the door he was in front of. Without thinking properly, and without looking away from the last place I had seen Michael (this was rather difficult since people were walking between the door and myself), I walked straight to the door and looked at the room number. 328. It was impossible, this couldn't be the same room I was about to have history in, four lessons were surely enough, pushing my luck even, five was definitely pushing it. I checked my time table and sure enough it was history in room 328. My heart gave another jump as I pushed the door open and walked through it. It was a fairly large room with the tables spread out enough to limit the amount of talking between their occupants, the whiteboard was on the opposite wall to the door and all the desks pointed in that direction, so that I could only see the backs of about twenty-five heads. It had posters of famous people in history all over the walls, though I couldn't name any of them, this was another reason I was terrible at history; I could remember people's faces but never their names-teachers were never happy when they asked you who was in the picture and all you were able to say was _'Oh that's thingy who started that war. '_

I glanced around the room, not sure if I was searching for a place to sit or for the messy, perfect hair I knew to be Michael's. I spotted an unclaimed chair and decided to head for it before Mr Wire decided to start the lesson. On my way to the chair I decided I had merely imagined Michael walking into this class, I put my bag down next to the leg of the table without looking at who was already sat at it, I decided I would try to be polite to whoever it was.

"Can I sit here?"

"It's a free country" a familiar, yet unknown voice answered.

I decided I would sit down before I looked at who I would probably be copying from for the rest of the school year, and was very glad I did, because I would have been sitting on the floor next to my bag if I had looked before being safely in my seat. I felt my jaw drop as I looked into his amazingly golden eyes; I had never seen them so close before, they were wonderful. I struggled to close my mouth trying to remember to breathe at the same time.

How many times did I have to see him before I could get used to his unfathomable beauty. I decided that I never would be able to get used to it. The fact that he had seemed repulsed by me from the first moment he had started at this school didn't matter, I was still in love with him and nothing could change that. I knew that the majority of the girls in the school had similar feelings to mine but I also knew that none of them could feel as passionately about him as I did. Although they all looked at him in the same way I did they all seemed to be hiding something at the same time, it looked like they were frightened of him. How absurd.

However today he did not give me the usual glare, instead he pulled the corner of his mouth up into a half smile. Wow.

"Hello," He said in his perfect voice, through his perfect lips. Was there anything about him that wasn't perfect?

"Umm, hi," my voice was more high pitched than usual, and he seemed to find it very entertaining, his half smile turned into a full one.

"You're Lydia, aren't you?"

How the hell did he know my name? I completely lost control of my voice then, so I simply nodded and felt like an absolute idiot.

"I'm Michael,"

I finally found my voice. "I know" even quieter and higher pitched than before, "How did you..."

But before I could finish the question Mr. Wire had started the introduction to history speech that he gave to his class at the start of each year. Explaining what was and was not acceptable in his class. I turned to look at the front of the class. Although I had heard this exact speech at least three times already. (I had been in his history class for four years in a row now, so he knew not to expect too much from me, after all I was 'impossible to teach' he had told my parents that after knowing my for merely a month- this was another reason I didn't like history) I tried to concentrate on what he was saying and not worry about the fact that Michael knew my name, or that I was going to sit next to him from now on in history.

Finally Mr. Wire's speech came to an end, "So if you can follow my rules and get all work in by the date it is due, I am sure we can all get along very well this year." He handed out the text books we would be using this term, encouraged us to familiarise ourselves with them and then took his seat at the front of the class and looked through his lesson plans. I grabbed the text book that was sitting on the desk in front of me and concentrated on the front cover. Oh wonderful, we were going to be learning about World War II. I heard a chuckle next to me, and turned to see who it had come from, even though I knew exactly who it was.

"Not too keen on World War II?"

Had my face been that obvious? I lost my voice again, I shook my head.

"Too many people killing each other, the First one wasn't as bad."

What a strange thing to say, "Actually, I don't like history at all, too many dates and names to remember, I'm not very good at it."

"Oh, I quite enjoy it, mind you I am fairly good at remembering dates and names."

"Yes, I'd noticed." I paused, wondering if the question would sound silly, I decided it probably would but I had to ask anyway, "How do you know my name?"

He smiled again, "Probably the same way you know mine."

Ha ha, that was doubtful, but I could hardly tell him that '_the only reason I know your name is because I am fixated with you and I have been ever since you first started at this school.' _Yeh that would be a very good conversation starter! So I just shrugged. "Maybe," I said in what I hoped was a casual way.

"You're not very talkative are you?"

"Well, I don't really want to get told off," I nodded my head towards Mr. Wire, "He's always looking for an excuse to penalise me, this is the fourth year I've been in his class, and we don't get on very well."

"Lydia," he laughed, wow, it was so amazing to hear my name coming from his mouth. "The majority of the class is having some sort of discussion!"

"All the more reason for him to single me out. If the rest of the class hear him start at me, they'll get the hint that he doesn't take things lightly."

Just then the bell for the end of the lesson went. It made me jump off my chair. He found that very funny.

"Scared of the bell?"

"No, I just didn't realise it was the end of the lesson, it made me jump."

He looked at me for a moment, he didn't have any expression on his face so I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but it was probably something like '_oh god she is crazy. I'm going to have to find somewhere else to sit in this class.' _

"What have you got next?" I asked when I finally plucked up the courage.

This time he did look at me like I was crazy.

"It's lunch next"

Darn it! Talk about making an idiot out of myself in one easy step. He definitely wouldn't want to be around me now! I felt myself going red in my cheeks. I threw my history book into my bag and stood up. At least I would have stood up, if the strap of my bag hadn't been caught around my foot, instead I flew head first towards the desk next to me, which was luckily empty. I closed my eyes waiting for the collision with the table. Nothing happened. I noticed that I was standing up straight. That was odd I was sure I was about to smash into the desk. I felt something around my waist. I opened my eyes to see what had saved me from the table, or rather, who. I blinked and found myself face to face with Michael. I looked into his eyes, they seemed to have changed colour, they weren't the golden that they had been when I was talking to him, they were dark brown, almost black. He wasn't moving, just standing there like a statue, it didn't even look like he was breathing, but that was just silly, of course he had to breathe. I stood there less than an inch away from him for what felt like hours, yet when he suddenly jumped backwards, it hadn't seemed long enough.

"Are you ok?"

I tried to say something, but before I had managed a coherent sentence he had rushed out of the classroom faster than I thought possible.

I stood in the classroom for a while longer while I tried to process what had just happened, I looked around and suddenly realised the room was empty. No one to ask what had happened. The last thing I could remember was heading for the desk, then I had closed my eyes, I was starting to wish I hadn't. How had Michael got around the table to me so fast? How had I not heard him move? Had his eyes really changed colour? Why had it felt so strange to have his arm around me? Why did it seem like he wasn't breathing? I couldn't answer any of them, so I decided I would have to ask Michael himself.

By the time I got to lunch the whole school were already in the café eating, I really didn't feel hungry so I just got a cheese roll and went over to the table I always sat at with my friends. They were deep in conversation about how their mornings had been when I sat down so none of them noticed me. I didn't mind this; I needed some time to think, even though I hadn't managed to work anything out on the long walk from history.

"Didn't he Lydia?"

Hearing Kelly say my name brought me out of my thoughts. She was staring at me with a look of confusion on her face.

"Lydia, are you ok? You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

"Yeh, I'm ok, just feeling a bit sick." This wasn't a lie, since the near accident at the end of history I had felt sick. I think it had something to do with my balance, It had all happened so fast one second I was sure I had been horizontal heading for the table, the next I was standing up straight with my feet firmly on the ground.

"Do you need to go home? You're as white as a sheet."

I thought about this for a moment, I might be able to do some thinking if I went home, both my parents would still be at work. Plus I had P.E. next, definitely could do with getting out of that.

"Lydia?"

"Hmmm?"

"Do you want to go home? I could take you to the office?"

"Umm, Yes please"

Kelly got up out of her chair and came around to my side of the table, picked up my bag for me and put her hand out to help me up.

We walked to the office practically in silence, with Kelly carrying both our bags on one shoulder and me leaning on her other one. We got to the office and Kelly stood behind me while I leaned on the reception desk and explained to the secretary that I felt sick and needed to go home, it didn't take much acting, I was looking even worse than I had in the café and the secretary was more than happy to call my mum to ask her to pick me up, it took a little more persuading to get her to let me walk home.

"My mum works, her boss won't be happy if she has to take time off to pick me up," this wasn't strictly true, my mum was self employed "Anyway I think the walk would do me good, my house is only down the road and I could do with some fresh air"

Eventually she let me go. I got my coat on and started home. It was raining, that didn't surprise me. I wasn't fond of the rain most of the time, but now it felt quite nice to have it splashing on my face, it was refreshing. The walk didn't take more than ten minutes, it usually took Kelly and me half an hour to walk home from school (we lived on the same street) but I was walking especially fast.

When I got home, as I expected, it was empty. I decided to play up the whole being ill façade; I got myself a hot water bottle, and went to bed. One o'clock, my parents wouldn't be home until at least five, which gave me four hours to do whatever I wanted. I was lying on the cover of my bed thinking about everything that had happened that day, and about what I was going to do tomorrow, and I fell asleep.

Next thing I heard was a car pulling up outside the house, I only had to sit up to look out the window so I decided to see if it was my parents home. As I sat up my head started to spin, I lay back on the pillow for a moment and tried to stop the room from rotating around me. As I was lying there I heard the front door open, that answered my question without me having to move again. I heard my mum say something to my dad about my bag being in the hall but couldn't concentrate on exactly what was being said. Then the phone rang and my dad answered it. My mum came up the stairs and knocked on my door.

"Lydia, are you in there?"

"Yeh."

"Can I come in?"

"Sure,"

She opened the door and looked at me sprawled out on my bed, I hadn't changed out of my uniform, and I was only half covered by the duvet so she could tell I had been in bed since I got home.

"Are you alright? You're as white as a sheet!"

"You're the second person to say that today, I had to come home early from school because I was feeling a bit sick, but I'm feeling better now," I wasn't feeling any better in fact I was feeling a lot worse but I didn't want her to worry about me.

"Are you sure? I don't want to leave you like this."

Leave me? "What do you mean?"

"Don't you remember? Your father and I are going out for a meal this evening, for our anniversary." It was only then I realised she was all dressed up, something my mum doesn't do often. She prefers to wear jeans and t-shirts all the time, I'm like her in that way, I never feel right when I have to dress up and go out somewhere.

"Oh, right, yeah. I'll be fine. Don't worry about me, you go and have fun, I'll see you later."

She came over and sat on the edge of my bed. She put her hand out and checked my forehead. "You're burning up, maybe I should stay so there is someone here for you if you feel bad again."

"Mum I'll be fine, you go and enjoy yourself, if I feel bad I'll call Kelly."

We went on like that for about ten minutes until my dad convinced my mum that I'd be ok, and I'd promised that I'd call Kelly if I felt any worse. I got changed into my pyjamas when they left and fell asleep before they had reached the end of the street. I didn't wake again that night.

* * *

I hope you liked it, let me know what you think. If I get a good response to this chapter then i will put another up. Thankyou.


	2. Friends

AN. Sorry it took a bit longer than I anticipated to get this up, I've been very busy over the weekend. But anyway here it is.

Enjoy....

* * *

I looked at my clock. 7:30 AM. I sat up; I didn't feel dizzy so I decided to go for a shower. I turned the light on in the bathroom and glanced in the mirror, I realised I had more colour in my face than I had the day before, this was a good sign. I had a shower, got dressed, dried my hair and went to find myself some breakfast. I got a bowl of cereal and had just finished it when my mum came into the kitchen.

"How are you feeling today? You look better than you did yesterday. Are you going to school? Are you sure you don't want to stay home?" She always asked lots of questions in a row without giving me time to answer, so I was used to remembering all the questions and giving her the answer to each one in the order she had asked them, this helped me a lot at school too, if a teacher was ranting at me I was able to answer all the questions in the right order and that usually left them with nothing to say.

"Mum, I'm fine. Yes I am going to school today, its Friday, I can manage school today and if I feel bad later I don't have anything to do over the weekend so I can just spend it in bed."

"You know sometimes I think you have more common sense than I do!"

I just laughed, even though I sometimes thought that too! "Mum, I better get to school, see you later,"

"Bye Lyd."

I walked to Kelly's house faster than usual despite the fact that I was early, I didn't want her leaving without me plus it was raining and I wasn't too happy about getting wet. I knocked at her door and her older brother James answered. He was one of the only people outside my family and very close friends that I felt comfortable around, that was probably because I had known him for a reasonably long time, and he was sort of like an older brother to me. I hadn't seen him in a while, he had been travelling with his girlfriend for the last six months. He must be about 20 now.

Kelly had a large family that always seemed to be getting bigger. She had four brothers and two sisters, she was the second oldest at 17, then the twins Erin and Lucy were 15, Tom was 13, Pippa was 8, and Stevie the youngest was 5 years old. I remembered how I had been jealous of Kelly when we became friends, I thought she was so lucky to have a big family with lots of children around, I remembered she had offered to swap families when I had told her this.

James stepped out of the doorway to let me in.

"Come in, Lydia, you'll get soaked out there," Then he turned his head in the direction of the stairs "Kel, Lydia's here, you'd better hurry up"

"Oh ok, I'll be there in a minute, is Lydia ok?" He turned back to me looking a little confused.

"Yeh I'm fine, just a bit wet! Don't rush, I'm early"

I followed James into the lounge, it was always busy in Kelly's house, mornings were the worst, Kelly's parents had to get six children off to three different schools and the get themselves to work all before 9 O'clock. Though it wasn't as bad as it used to be when I first become friends with Kelly, that was 4 years ago so Stevie had only been a baby, Pippa had just started at pre-school, Tom was 9 and the twins were 11, and were all too young to get to school on their own, Kelly and I used to walk with James and his friends so that was easier on her parents. These days everyone walks with a group of friends apart from Stevie who gets dropped off by Kelly's mum on her way to work. This morning however things were a bit different.

"Aww, but its raining!" That was Pippa; she's at that age where they moan about everything.

"I'll get soaked if I walk today!" Lucy, just starting to notice boys and grasp the idea of looking good to impress them.

"My guitar will get all wet and fall apart!" Tom, not the brightest of the family, but definitely the most creative.

Kelly's mum looked like she was ready to pull her hair out.

"Don't worry mum, I'll take Erin, Lu and Tom to school if you want, and you can take Pippa and Stevie, alright?" Kelly's mum must have been happy to have her eldest son back home and able to help.

Just then Kelly came downstairs and burst through the doorway. "Have you looked out the window? It's chucking it down out there, we can't walk!"

I felt really bad that Kelly had said this, especially after her mum and brother had just sorted out the school run. "Don't worry, I've got my umbrella in my bag, we can use that,"

"No way it looks really windy out there, we'll end up like Mary Poppins!"

James thought about it for a moment.

"Mum if I take the 7 seater then I can take Kel and Lydia as well as Erin, Lu and Tom."

So it was settled James was taking the five of us. He went to get the car keys. I stood there for a minute not knowing quite what to do. Then Kelly's mum handed me three backpacks (I guessed they belonged to Erin, Lucy and Tom) and asked me to go put them in the car. Glad to have something to do I rushed out of the lounge with the three bags over my shoulder and took them to the car. The car was in the drive and James was already there putting Tom's Guitar into the boot.

"Oh, hey Lydia, give them to me I'll chuck them in the boot with this guitar."

"Ok, here you go," I handed him the bags "How was travelling?"

"Yeh, cool thanks, I got back on Monday"

"Yeh, Kelly said you were back, where did you go?"

"All over, Spent about 2 months backpacking through Europe, then had a month in Australia and New Zeland, went up to Japan and China, had a couple of weeks there, then flew out to America and went to most of the states over there, that took us about a month and a half, then we came home."

"Wow I bet you had a great time, I'd love to see the world."

"I thought you had been to most of the countries in the world?"

"Well I guess, but it's not the same when you go on holiday as it is if you live there."

"I suppose it is a bit different. I've got loads of pictures though; you'll have to see them sometime."

"Yeh that sounds cool."

The front door opened and eight people came out, four of which came towards the car I was standing next to, and the others went to the car next to it and all got in a drove off. James shut the boot and went to the driver's seat, Kelly and I jumped in the back, our usual seats, and dropped our bags on the floor. I took the opportunity to check my timetable for the day (I had English, Maths, break, then Science, lunch, Drama and finally History, not a bad day.) The other three were still arguing about who was going to sit in the front as James started the car and threatened to drive off without them, they soon got in when they realised he wasn't joking.

The drive was very short, James wasn't a typical 'boy racer' but he went fast enough. It would have been a short journey anyway. I thought it was a bit of a pointless journey, all five of us went to the same school and it wouldn't have taken us very long to walk, we wouldn't have got too wet. But when we arrived at school, nice and dry compared to most of the students, I was quite glad we'd had a lift.

We all got out, the other three got their bags out of the boot, so Kelly and I made our escape. We walked towards our lockers, we had English and Maths together so we got the books we needed for both subjects then headed to English.

"Are you sure you are feeling better today?"

"Yeh, I'm fine, and no I'm not just saying that, I really am fine!"

"Good, well you'll never guess who was me asking about you yesterday,"

"What? Who was asking about me? And what were they asking?"

"Didn't I tell you who's in my DT class?"

"No, but I thought you were going to tell me about someone asking about me"

"I am. He was asking me about you in DT,"

"Who was?"

"Michael!"

"What! What was he asking? What did you tell him? Why was he asking about me? He's in your DT class?" Like my mother, I sometimes asked lots of questions without giving people time to answer.

"He asked me if you were ok. I told him you had gone home. I guess he was concerned about you, yes he is in my DT class."

"Ok, back up, what happened? What exactly did he say?"

"Well after you left to walk home, there wasn't any point in going back to the café so I decided to head to DT early, I went in and sat down, and that's when Michael came in. He said you had nearly fallen over in History or something, I was tempted to tell him that's normal for you," I elbowed her in the rib, I hoped she hadn't said that to him. "Don't worry I didn't actually say it, just thought it! But then he said that he saw you at lunch in the hall and that you looked very white then he saw me take you to the office, and didn't know if you were ok, he sounded really concerned."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Anyway, I told him that you had gone home, and he said he hoped you got better soon, and asked if I had any idea what had made you ill so suddenly. I said I didn't know. And that's all we got time for because the lesson started."

"Really? Why didn't you call me and tell me about it?"

"I did call you, last night, to see how you were, but your dad said you had been in bed all afternoon and that you were asleep."

It was too late to ask anymore questions, we were at our English class. I opened the door, most of the class were already sat at their desks but there were still a few people hanging around by the doorway and sitting on desks chatting. I followed Kelly through the little crowd of people by the door and felt my eyes grow wide and my mouth drop. I had forgotten Michael was in this class; luckily he was facing the other way with his head in a book so he didn't see me stumble over a foot as I made my way to my seat. Our English teacher, Mrs. Spenser was a nice teacher and one of those rare ones that let you do what you want as long as the work gets done as well. Last year she had let us listen to our iPods while we did some work and hopefully she would do the same this year. As well as letting us do what we want she also lets us sit with who we want, she believes that if you are with your friends you feel more relaxed and are able to come up with better ideas - vital in English. Naturally I sat next to Kelly, we were at a table at the back of the class, I had chosen this particular desk because it's an excellent place to spy on people, and by people I obviously mean Michael. Kelly was talking to Jack, she fancied him and had done for a year now, but was too shy to ask him out and just hoped that if she talked to him enough he might ask her out. I put my books down on the table and sat down. At the exact same moment that I moved my chair Michael shut his book and turned. It was as if he had heard my chair move but that was impossible; there was so much chatter in the classroom he would have needed hearing stronger than a bat to hear my chair move. And yet there he was turning round on his chair and looking straight at me. He was two rows in front of me and a table to the left so it was too far to actually talk but he smiled and mouthed 'Are you ok?' to me, I simply smiled back and nodded, then he did a thumbs up at me, turned around so he was facing the whiteboard and opened his book again.

English dragged. When Mrs. Spenser had finally made it to the class, ten minutes late, she briefly explained that we would be writing autobiographies next week and told us to get thinking about things we wanted to put in them and our homework was to find pictures and anything else we wanted to go in it. I made brief notes on my pad but that only took 15 minutes, which meant I had about half an hour to do nothing, well not so much nothing, I just stared at the back of his head trying to use the power of my mind to get him to turn around again. My mind obviously wasn't strong enough. It didn't work.

Maths was boring, we had started algebra, I really didn't like it, and it confused me, having letters in maths, just not right. Science was even worse, chemical compounds, yuck! It was just the idea of the afternoon that kept me going, drama was my favourite lesson, then History, a whole hour sitting next to Michael. That would be good.

I made my way to lunch after science, we had been let out early and the hall was virtually empty. I got a jacket potato with cheese and went to the table my group of friends sit at, I was the first one there so I sat down and looked at the homework I had been given in maths. As usual the maths work didn't seem as bad once I was out the classroom. I sat there eating my potato and doing my homework while I waited for the others to join me. I managed to answer the first 10 questions before anyone else had sat at the table. Then Kelly came over with Julia and sat next to me at the table, I decided to put my homework away and ask the girls how their morning had been. I was standing before the bell had even gone. I probably looked very eager but every one at the table knows how much I enjoy drama.

"I've got Science next, can't be too bad."

"Don't bet on it, if you're doing the same as me, then its chemical compounds!"

"Oh, what! First week back and they are already trying to kill me! I'm tempted to skip it, what have you got?"

"Drama,"

"Oh, you wont want to skip that will you?"

"Nope, we only get two lessons of drama a week, I'm not missing one!"

"I guess I'll have to go to science then, see you later."

"OK, I'll meet you by the lockers at the end of the day,"

Kelly headed to the science lab and I made my way to the drama theatre. It was locked, I looked at the clock on the wall opposite I was three minutes early, I sat down on the floor next to the door, leant my head against the wall and closed my eyes. I was so tired I didn't know why, I had slept for a very long time last night, I guessed I was still a bit jet lagged from flying home on Sunday.

"Are you feeling bad again?" Damn that voice was unmistakeable. I opened my eyes and saw Michael sitting on the floor leaning against the wall opposite me. I wish he wouldn't creep around like that.

"No. I feel fine, just a bit tired."

"I'm glad. I heard you went home yesterday,"

"Yeh I did,"

"Why?"

"I didn't feel well."

"Oh what was wrong?"

"Felt sick, had a headache, and didn't want to do PE!"

"Don't you like PE?"

I scrunched up my nose, "I'm not very athletic." he laughed at that. I didn't really like the idea of him laughing at me, but the sound of it.. wow. I couldnt find a reason to be upset.

Finally the drama teacher arrived along with the rest of the class so we all went in and sat down.

* * *

AN. Thankyou for reviewing, hope you liked it, will out the next one up soon.


	3. Family

AN. Hey, I've been asked about the Cullens, they wont be in this fic for a while yet, maybe not at all, I'm still not completely sure where this story is going I have a basic idea, but not sorted out all the details. I'll let you guys influence me on that, so let me know what you think should happen.

Sorry if this doesn't seem like it's really going anywhere at the moment, I'm just trying to build the characters, it will get more interesting soon, I promise.

Enjoy....

* * *

In the drama lesson on Tuesday we had done getting to know people exercises all lesson so that we knew the rest of the group and could work well with each other. We started today's lesson with another getting to know each other activity. I wasn't any good at it. After that we had to get into pairs and make up a short scene about being stranded on a desert island, not particularly original but it was the best the teacher came up with. I looked around and noticed most of the class were already in pairs there were a couple of groups trying to get away with being in threes but the teacher wasn't happy about that. I looked around the room trying to spot someone I could go with, I was really getting annoyed with my incapability of remembering people's names, that is until I spotted the only face I recognised in the entire class. Michael. I smiled at him and he walked over to me.

"Are you with anyone?" He asked, while sitting down next to me.

"ummm, no,"

"Ok, so, we are stuck on a desert island. What would you do?"

Haha!

I had a very good idea of what I would do if I was stranded on an island with Michael, but I really didn't think it would be a good idea to tell him.

"Umm, find food I guess, what would you do?"

He laughed, it wasn't a normal sound, it sounded as though he had forced himself to laugh. "Food would be a good idea, and shelter,"

"Yeh, we would need somewhere to sleep."

He laughed again this time it sounded more natural, had I said something funny? Oh dear had I implied that we would sleep together?

"I didn't mean _we_ would need somewhere to sleep. I meant we would need to sleep somewhere, no. I mean, I would need to sleep somewhere and you would sleep somewhere else." Oh god I was babbling, and about sleeping with Michael of all things! I could feel my cheeks burning.

"It's ok, I know what you mean. So now that we have sorted the food and sleeping arrangements, what else would we need to do?"

"Umm, I don't know, get a suntan?"

"I think I would need more than a day on a desert island to get a tan!" it was only when he said this that I noticed how pale his skin really was.

"Maybe try to get home somehow?"

"Yeh, so what? Build a boat?"

"Ha ha, good idea, but I was thinking more signals, like fire and smoke or something like that,"

"Oh rite, yeah of course! That's just obvious!"

"Well its all very well to say what you think you would do in that situation, but unless you do find yourself stranded on an island you don't know what you would do,"

"You sound like you're talking from experience,"

"I guess I am a bit,"

"You've been stuck on an island?"

"No, not exactly,"

"Well what do you mean then?"

"Well, after my parents died it felt like I was trapped all alone somewhere."

"Your parents died?"

"Yes, I live with my Aunt and Uncle and their two children,"

"Emily and William aren't your brother and sister?"

"No, they're not even my real cousins,"

"What?"

"My Aunt and Uncle couldn't have children, so they adopted William and Emily,"

"Oh, do you have any real brothers or sisters?"

"I did have a sister, but she died too,"

"Oh, I'm sorry,"

"It's ok, it all happened a long time ago," he seemed ok to talk about it, but there was something in his eyes, his amazing golden eyes, that made me think it was a difficult subject for him.

The bell went for the end of the lesson, I didn't realise it had been an hour. I grabbed my bag and headed towards the door with the rest of the class.

"Its History now, isn't it?" I asked Michael, I knew it was, I just felt like I needed to change the subject from his parents.

"Yes,"

We walked most of the way to History in silence. Then suddenly he spoke.

"What about you? Any brothers or sisters?"

"No I'm an only child,"

"Oh, do you like being an only child?"

"Ummm," No one had ever asked me that out right. "Sometimes it's cool, having my parents all to myself, but then I look at people with siblings and think it must be cool to have someone around the same age to chat with."

We sat at our table in history. Mr Wire started the lesson by making us list anything we knew about World War 2. Luckily we were allowed to work in pairs. I thought that would be good as Michael seemed to know a lot about it so I could just let him list everything.

"So, what do you know about it?"

I hadn't been planning on him asking me about it, I had told him yesterday that I was no good at history. "Umm, nothing,"

"Nothing? Surely you know something about it?"

"I can't think,"

"Ok, why do they call it a '_World War'?"_

"Because the whole world was involved?"

"Exactly, even though not all of the countries were involved, but I won't go into that, I don't want to confuse you!" He wrote something down on the sheet we had been given.

"Do you know when it started or finished?"

"Umm, no"

"Go on have a guess"

"I don't know"

"Was it in the 1500's? 1600's?"

"No, wasn't it 19-something?"

"1939 until 1945,"

"Oh yeah that's it!" I said sarcastically, I had no idea when it had been!

He laughed as he wrote the exact dates down, day, month and year. How did he know that so well?

"How do you know so much about WWII?"

"Oh, like I said I'm good at remembering dates and things."

"Well yeah but you must have been taught it in the first place,"

"We studied it at my last school."

"What school did you go to before you started here?"

"Oh we lived in America, it was a school out there,"

"America?" I couldn't believe that, he had such a strong English accent, one you might hear in old movies, it definitely didn't sound English.

"Yes"

"You don't sound like you're from America"

"Well technically I'm not, I was born in London, but when my parents died I went to live America with my only family."

"Why did you move back to England?"

"My uncle's work moved him over here we all came with him,"

"Oh, so how long did you live in America?"

"About 11 years, I was six when my parents died,"

"It must have been terrible, do you miss them?"

"It was a long time ago, it probably sounds mean but I don't really remember them that well, but I still think of them a lot," The same look that he had in drama came back to his eyes I didn't want to upset him, I just wanted to try and fathom him out.

"Sorry, I'm asking too many questions about it, tell me to shut up if you don't want to talk about it,"

He smiled at that "I'm not going to tell you to shut up. That would be rude. Besides, this just means that I can ask you lots of questions when you've finished,"

"Ask me questions? Why would you want to do that?"

"Same reason you are asking me, to find out more about you,"

I couldn't say anything to this, the lump was back in my throat. He seemed to understand, and turned to look at the sheet and wrote down so much information he completely filled the sheet, he wrote so fast, but it was Incredibly neat as well, if I had been writing at that speed it would have been illegible. He turned the sheet over and carried on writing on the back. I felt my jaw drop when he had filled that side too. i felt the lump in my throat disappear.

"Wow, you really do know lots about it don't you?"

"Well it was the last topic we did when I was in America, and it's quite interesting."

"I could never remember that much information, especially about history."

He smiled at me and handed me the sheet he had been writing on. "Well I suppose you need this more than I do then."

I looked at it; there was so much information in his amazingly neat writing on it:

World War 2 started on the 1st September 1939 and ended on the 14th August 1945 although Japan continued until 2nd September 1945.

It was called a world war because the majority of the world was concerned; however Switzerland, Ireland, Sweden, Spain and Portugal were not involved.

Children from major cities in England were evacuated to the countryside. The first official evacuations began on September 1 1939. By January 1940 most of the children had returned to their homes. The second evacuation effort was started after the Germans had taken most of France, during June 1940. When theBlitz began on 7 September 1940, children who had returned home or had not been evacuated were evacuated. The third effort was From June 1944, 1,000,000 women, children, elderly and disabled people were evacuated from London. This new way of attacking Britain carried on until the end of the war.

The sheet went on like this with more information than I thought any human brain was capable of knowing on one subject.

"How do you remember all of this?"

"I just have a good memory. I'll get you remembering the main details by the end of the term,"

"Ha, good luck! Even Mr Wire has given up with trying to teach me!"

"Well I do like a challenge,"

When the bell went, we both stood up and walked out the room, still talking to each other. It wasn't until I heard Kelly calling my name that I realised we were standing next to my locker.

"See you on Monday," Michael said as he turned to walk away to his locker.

"Wait," I put my arm out and grabbed the sleeve of his coat. "Don't go,"

"I've got to, William and Emily will be waiting for me," he pulled his arm free and disappeared into the crowd behind him. I was just about to follow him when I heard Kelly call my name again.

"Lydia, are you deaf?"

I turned round and saw her closing her locker, "No, I'm not deaf,"

The walk home was wet, we were walking with Kelly's little sister Lucy, and they were asking each other how there days were so I had lots of time to think about all the things Michael had said and all the questions I wanted to ask him. I heard them saying something about going shopping in town over the weekend. Lucy said she needed to get some thing for a science project, and Kelly told us about a film that was just released that she had to get.

When we got to Kelly's house we told Kelly's mum about our plans for the following day and Pippa overheard and started begging to come with us. Eventually we had to give in to her. After planning the following day we sat down and watched a film on TV. I walked home after the film finished. I got home just as my mum was dishing up dinner. After dinner I went to do my homework since I would probably be busy most of the weekend.

* * *

AN. Hope you liked it. I was contemplating putting some of Michaels pov up. Please review and let me know what you think.

Thankyou :)


	4. Michael's POV so far

AN: OK so people thought Michael's POV would be a good idea, and I thought it might help character development plus it's always nice to know what the characters are thinking. I wasn't expecting this to be as long but I just got a little carried away.

Enjoy...

* * *

I was extremely glad Lydia wasn't still sick, however she seemed to want to know more about me, which wasn't good, usually people had the common sense to stay away from us.

I'm not sure why but I had to know if she was ok, I had seen her leave the lunch room looking nearly as pale as me. I knew what happened when people got too close to me, it had always happened and it was extremely annoying. The first time it had happened I had nearly killed someone, completely unintentionally and not in the usual way that a vampire would hurt someone.

I hadn't been a vampire for very long when it happened. A woman had been injured by a mine and was screaming in pain. I had just 'eaten' so I wasn't thirsty and I went over to try to help her but I ended up making her worse although I hadn't realised it was me at the time so I continued trying to help. It was only when she had lost consciousness that I had picked her up and ran to the nearest town with her, it wasn't very far and I had run exceptionally fast-even for a vampire that it hadn't been too late, but it was a very close call. Ever since then I had avoided physical contact with humans where ever possible. At first I had thought it was just a side effect of being a 'monster' I hadn't realised I was a vampire until I met the others and that's when I also realised it was only me that made people sick with just one touch.

After seeing Lydia go home I decided to talk to Kelly and ask her how Lydia was, and see if she had told Kelly anything about what happened in history.

So now I was sitting in English waiting for class to begin, pretending to read one of the books that we were going to be studying this term, I already knew it inside out but teachers like it if you look interested in their subjects. I had seen Lydia arrive at school and she looked a lot better than she had yesterday lunch, and now she was heading to her desk with Kelly. I had seen her come in and decided to keep my head in my book, at least until she was in her chair. However when she tripped over Sam's foot I had to battle with a smile, considering she had only tripped because she was looking at me!

As soon as she was out of my sight I let out a chuckle and the composed myself ready to turn around when she was in her seat. I heard her put her books on the desk and move her chair and I couldn't help myself; I had to check she was ok after yesterday. So I turned and asked her how she felt. She was already looking at me when I turned so I didn't have to try and get her attention. I asked her if she was ok, and she nodded at me. I tried to look nonchalant about it and turned to the front of the class just in time for Mrs Spenser to start the lesson.

***

After lunch it was time for drama, since I obviously don't eat anything at lunch I am usually the first one to class.

I wasn't today.

There was Lydia.

She was sitting on the floor outside the drama theatre with her head against the wall and her eyes closed. I immediately thought she'd had a relapse from yesterday.

"Are you feeling bad again?" I had to ask.

"No. I feel fine, just a bit tired."

"I'm glad. I heard you went home yesterday,"

"Yeh I did,"

"Why?"

"I didn't feel well."

"Oh what was wrong?"

"Felt sick, had a headache, and didn't want to do PE!"

Oh dear, well she didn't seem to suspect anything about me, that was good.

"Don't you like PE?"

She didn't really seem like the athletic sort so it didn't surprise me.

"I'm not very athletic."

You don't say.

***

I don't like pair work in drama I much prefer group activities. Luckily the class seemed to already have pairs to go in, I was just about to go and hide in a corner away from the teacher when I spotted Lydia. Typical! She wasn't in a pair. She smiled at me, I quickly checked the room, exactly 24 people including myself, and 22 of which were already in pairs and had started the activity (or a conversation about the weekend.) which left me to go with Lydia. I walked over to her.

"Are you with anyone?"

"ummm, no,"

Not that I didn't already know that. I decided to get straight on with the activity and avoid any questions she may ask me.

"Ok, so, we are stuck on a desert island. What would you do?"

"Umm, find food I guess, what would you do?"

Haha! Food yes, only I wouldn't need to find any if I was there with you! Oh dear no, stop thinking like that, role on 3.30 so I can go hunting.

"Food would be a good idea, and shelter,"

"Yeh, we would need somewhere to sleep."

Well you would need to sleep, I wouldn't, or rather couldn't. I would love to be able to sleep, it's nearly been a century since I last slept.

"I didn't mean _we_ would need somewhere to sleep."

What is she going on about, oh she thinks I thought she meant sleep together.

"I meant we would need to sleep somewhere, no. I mean, I would need to sleep somewhere and you would sleep somewhere else."

How sweet, her cheeks were going a nice shade of red. Although she does look a little embarrassed.

"It's ok, I know what you mean. So now that we have sorted the food and sleeping arrangements, what else would we need to do?"

"Umm, I don't know, get a suntan?"

Suntan? Really? Wouldn't you want to get off the island and away from me?

"I think I would need more than a day on a desert island to get a tan!" Then again I think you would too.

"Maybe try to get home somehow?"

"Yeh, so what? Build a boat?"

A boat? From what? The sand?

"Ha ha, good idea, but I was thinking more signals, like fire and smoke or something like that,"

"Oh rite, yeah of course! That's just obvious!"

"Well its all very well to say what you think you would do in that situation, but unless you do find yourself stranded on an island you don't know what you would do,"

"You sound like you're talking from experience,"

Oops, no I cant tell her that.

"I guess I am a bit,"

"You've been stuck on an island?"

"No, not exactly,"

"Well what do you mean then?"

I don't know. Why did you make me say anything!

"Well, after my parents died it felt like I was trapped all alone somewhere."

"Your parents died?"

"Yes, I live with my Aunt and Uncle and their two children,"

Isn't it obvious we aren't related?

"Emily and William aren't your real brother and sister?"

"No, they're not even my real cousins,"

Why am I telling you this?

"What?"

"My Aunt and Uncle couldn't have children, so they adopted William and Emily,"

"Oh, do you have any real brothers or sisters?"

"I did have a sister, but she died too," I wish I could have found her before it was too late.

"Oh, I'm sorry,"

"It's ok, it all happened a long time ago," Too long ago.

Just after the bell went Lydia picked up her book and turned back to me.

"Its History now, isn't it?"

"Yes," I really wished we were doing something other than World War 2, that subject brings back too many memories.

We walked most of the way to History in silence. I couldn't take it I kept thinking of my parents and my sister and just thinking if I hadn't been so eager to run away from whoever had done this to me I might have had another chance to see them before it was too late.

"What about you? Any brothers or sisters?"

"No I'm an only child,"

"Oh, do you like being an only child?"

"Ummm, sometimes it's cool, having my parents all to myself, but then I look at people with siblings and think it must be cool to have someone around the same age to chat with."

Yes I suppose it would be, not many people that are my age are still around though.

***

In Histoy we had to write information about WWII. We were allowed to work in pairs this was good since the only thing I could think of at that moment was my parents and how they had died during it, and how my sister had lost her husband (who I had never met) during it as well. I kept asking Lydia questions about it hoping to forget about my family. It worked and by the end of the lesson I had filled both sides of the sheet with facts and figures completely unrelated to any member of my family. I had also found out a few extra things about Lydia, and without meaning to, told her even more about my past. Just missing out the unimportant bits like the fact I was born in the last year of the 19th century, and I am now a vampire that tries extremely hard not to turn on every single neck in this place and have a nice long refreshing drink.

***

We were at Lydia's locker and I don't think she realised. We had been let out a bit early so not many people were around. She had just asked what I was doing over the weekend. I shrugged that question off, I didn't really feel like telling her I was going hunting, and looked over her shoulder at Kelly who was making her way to her own locker and had just called Lydia's name. I really didn't want to be caught talking to Lydia for too long, no one else had been around when we had got to the locker but now people were starting to be let out of class and were making their way out of school.

"See you on Monday," I turned and started walking without waiting for an answer, but stopped dead when I felt a hand on the sleeve of my jacket. It wasn't that she was stronger than me, no chance. I was just scared that I would make her ill again.

"Wait, don't go," she sounded like she was almost begging.

"I've got to, William and Emily will be waiting for me," I pulled my arm free and made my way through the crowd to where I knew William and Emily would be waiting for me.

On our run back to the house I decided that I had told Lydia too much about myself, and vowed that it wouldn't happen again, I wasn't sure how it had happened in the first place. I was so thirsty, and was extremely glad when Charlotte and Frank (my aunt and uncle as far as anyone else was concerned) got home so we could all go hunting.

* * *

AN: Hope you liked it and I hope it gave you a bit more of an insight into Michael's personality and past. Reviews would be nice :)

I wrote this quite early this morning and when I just re-read it I found some mistakes, sorry. I have changed it now and I hope it makes a little bit more sense.


	5. Movies and Tree Houses

AN: Sorry it's been a while since I posted, I've been busy this week with work and things, thats the main reason this chapter isnt quite as long as the others, but I hope you will enjoy it.

* * *

I woke up early considering it was a Saturday. I hadn't been able to sleep very well anyway. I woke up numerous times during the night, (I think I'd had nightmares, but by the time I woke up in a cold sweat, I had forgotten them.) When I woke up again just after seven I decided it wasn't too early to get out of bed. I went downstairs to get breakfast and saw a note under the toaster in the kitchen. _Lydia_ it started.

_Your father and I have had to go into work this morning. Very sorry. Hope you have a nice time shopping with Kelly, see you later._

_Mum xx_

I had forgotten that I had agreed to go shopping. We were meeting at the bus stop at 10 which gave me the best part of 3 hours before I had to leave. I made myself some toast and turned the radio on, there was nothing good on any of the stations, so I looked through the stack of CDs next to the speaker trying to find one to listen to. I found my mums David Bowie album and put it on, not really my usual choice of music but I just felt like listening to it. I ate my toast and went to have a shower.

I had another look at my English homework, we had to fill out a planning sheet for our autobiographies. I really didn't have anything interesting to put in it, born October 20th 1989, no siblings, no pets (unless you count the six fish I managed to kill within the space of about a month, my parents kept replacing them in an attempt I wouldn't know the difference), academically I'm a fairly average student so nothing to put about that, hobbies and extra-curricula activities were very limited, since I'm not a sporty person I never signed up for sports clubs and although I enjoy drama at school, the people in drama club are very eccentric and I don't get on with them well so that was out. My parents put me through piano lessons but the teacher moved and we couldn't find another one, I had tried to learn the guitar a couple of years ago, but that didn't work out (my parents would complain about headaches when I put the amp on, but moan at me if I wasn't practicing, it was a bit of a no win situation). I really couldn't think of anything interesting enough to write down, I have read biographies and autobiographies about actors and musicians and their childhood always seems so fascinating. I gave up with homework and threw my book back in my school bag under my desk. I looked at the clock, it was nearly half past nine, nearly time to walk to the bus stop and meet up with Kelly and her sisters. I grabbed my wallet, mobile phone and keys, put them in my bag and headed for the door. It wasn't raining yet but it looked like it would at any time so I got my jacket and locked the door behind me.

The bus stop was halfway between my house and Kelly's so there wasn't any point in either of us going to the others house if we were getting the bus anywhere. I finally made it to the stop, I was a bit early so I was surprised to see Kelly and her sisters standing there already.

I wasn't a typical girl when it comes to shopping, I just like to know what I want, go to a shop and get it, I don't like browsing around, I think it's just a way of getting people to spend more money. I bought a book about a girl going home after being evacuated for the war, called Back Home (my history teacher would be so pleased), Kelly bought a DVD, some sort of teen movie thing, and her sister bought some CD by a pop band that I had never heard of.

We went back to Kelly's house to watch the new DVD she had just bought. It was easy watching even though the plot was extremely predictable and the actors weren't the best I'd ever seen. It was one of those strangely attractive unique girls falls for the school hottie they, get to know each other and fall in love and end up happily ever after plots, you know the story that never happens in real life, but everyone wishes it would, even if they wont admit it! Maybe I'm just too sceptical, but it seems that this story line has been over used, Surely it all started with Romeo and Juliette and then as time went on people changed the two conflicting families into two conflicting high school clichés just to keep with the times. I suppose people find familiarity reassuring, I just always wonder what the reaction would be if everything went totally 'wrong' and the guy didn't find her funny or interesting, or the girl got hit by a bus on her way to meet him or something. Yes I did over think this.

Kelly and her family were going out for a meal that evening since they hadn't done so in ages. I had been invited but I passed on the offer. When I got home my parents told me they had eaten a lot at lunch and consequently weren't hungry so I made myself some pasta. There was still a little bit of sunlight falling on the back garden as I cooked the pasta so I decided to eat it in the old tree house my parents and I had made when I was a lot younger. I decided to take my English homework with me, hoping to be inspired by an old toy or something that had been discarded in the tree house.

I put my laptop in my school bag with my homework, threw it over my shoulder, put my pasta in a pot with a lid so I could climb up to the tree house without spilling any (this had been done numerous times before) and made my way to the garden.

I had to climb a rope ladder to get to the tree house. I hadn't been up there for so long. But it looked exactly as I remembered it, but maybe a little smaller. I remember pestering my dad into building it. It was during my obsession with The Simpsons (guess where I got the idea from) and I had bugged my parents for ages until my mother finally wavered and said 'maybe, but you'll have to check with your father' so I pulled the 'mum said it was ok' card with a side order of the puppy dog eyes and a full on pout that you can only get away with as a child, and finally broke my dad. It had taken most of the Easter holiday to build it and make it safe, and I had slept in it every night for about three weeks, until we got an exceptionally bad thunder storm and I had dived inside before you could even think 'lightning'. After that I slept there whenever it was a nice calm night, or if I had friends round for a sleepover. When I became a teenager however, things changed, it wasn't 'cool' to have a tree house let alone actually sleep in it. Things had changed again when I was 14 and my parents had a huge argument, I had taken refuge in the tree house with my book and CD player and had stayed there until the row had passed. I have spent quite a few nights in here for that reason in the last three or so years, my parents don't usually argue a lot, but when they do, boy do you know it!

I haven't actually been up here in months, since before the summer, in fact it was the day Michael had started at my school, I had actually imagined him being up here with me, us talking about insignificant things, listening to music, hugging, kissing… ok I promised myself I wouldn't think about him today and there it goes, nearly a whole day wasted.

I shook my head and looked around, things really hadn't changed, the pile of pillows and blankets were still in the corner with a plastic sheet over the top so they didn't get ruined by nature. A big plastic stacking box and a fold up crate with old board games and books in were in the opposite corner, a little chair that was too small for anyone to be truly comfortable in was next to the door with other books and games stacked on top. And around the walls were pictures of family, friends, bands that I had liked when I was younger and TV characters. There were lights in the ceiling, yes I have a very posh tree house, well they aren't real lights more like torches, I had gone shopping with my parents for a camping holiday (it really wasn't us, my mum is too attached to regular showers and real toilets to enjoy the outdoors life, my father and I enjoyed it but prefer hotels) and I found some little disc lights that you just have to hit and they turn on, I did originally have them on my floor but my dad stuck them on the roof when I had a friend sleep over, and that is where they have been ever since.

I sat on the pile of pillows with the blankets around me-it was a nice evening but it was still damn cold, and ate my pasta while listening to my iPod, I had all my songs on shuffle and it made me laugh that it went from a Disney song, over to Guns and Roses, then to Michael Jackson, Marilyn Manson Jimmy Eat World, and finished on Paramore. I have a varied collection on my iPod. I finished my pasta and huddled up in the blankets trying to warm myself up a bit. I decided to read my new book, and managed to get six chapters in before I was taken over by sleep.

* * *

AN: Again sorry, for the ammount of time you had to wait and for the lack of size of this chapter. I'll try to get the next up sooner and I will try to make it longer.

Reviews help me to get inspired.


	6. Soggy Walks

AN: Again I'm sorry this chapter isn't very long, but nothing very interesting happens when Michael isn't around! Worry not though, the next one should be a lot longer.

Enjoy ...

* * *

I actually managed to have a lie in the next morning, which is rather strange because the tree house isn't the most comfortable place I have ever slept, but I was obviously very tired. I woke up around midday and I still hadn't managed to do all of my homework for the week. I looked in my school bag and found my maths work that I had started Friday lunch and hadn't looked at since. I read the first question again just to check I knew what I was doing and was very glad I did because I had got it totally wrong, I must have been thinking about something else when I did it the first time, I can't imagine what though.

I finished the maths questions and made a mental note to ask my mother to check them for me before I handed them in on Monday. Now on to English, I really couldn't be bothered to do it though, I hate writing about myself. I looked around the tree house at the pictures of family and friends, and decided to write about them, about my grandparents that had passed away when I was younger and about my friends that had gone onto different schools, or moved away to different parts of the country or, in one case, a different country altogether.

I got my laptop out and typed a quick email to Amy, we hadn't spoken in ages. We had been best friends and practically inseparable when we were younger, but she had moved it France because of her father's job and we had lost touch. I asked her how things were with her and asked what she was doing these days and wondered if she was still in France. After I clicked the 'send' button I felt incredibly silly, we hadn't been in contact for years, she probably wouldn't be interested in hearing from me anyway. I closed the laptop not expecting any sort of reply to the email and continued with my homework.

I filled up the little box for information about 'family and friends' quite easily. I found one picture of me with both sets of grandparents, I don't usually like pictures of myself but it was the only picture I had of all of them together so I didn't mind it too much. I had another copy of the picture in my bedroom so I put this one in my school bag. All of the pictures around the tree house were extra copies of ones we had in photo albums or ones I had in my room, my mother wouldn't let me put the originals in here in case they got damaged. This was one of my mothers better ideas.

I decided to list the schools I had been in and tried to remember every teacher I'd had in the 11 years I had been in the schools. I was able to name most teachers and the different subjects they had taken me for, I knew I wouldn't put every teacher in my autobiography but it was nice to know my memory was good enough to remember the teachers' names and subjects.

I listed the things I was interested in, music- the rock side of things generally but a few songs that reminded me of specific things like parties or friends, films-most things really, I'm always up for watching a new film, the amount of videos and DVD's I own is crazy, books-I'm not an amazing reader, but if I fond a book I like there is no stopping me until I've finished it, and sometimes I will have to re read it just because it was that amazing. I try to be creative but I never really have the patients or the skills to accomplish any thing worth showing off, which is why I prefer to read, listen and watch rather than write, play and act.

It was only when my stomach grumbled at me that I realised I had been awake two hours without eating or drinking anything, my English worksheet looked full enough so I put it away in my school bag, and climbed down the ladder.

The backdoor was locked, which made me think my parents didn't know I had spent the night in the tree house, well it made me hope they hadn't realised, otherwise they were giving me a not-so-subtle hint that they wanted me out the house more often. I found the spare key under the flower pot where it always was, and let my self in before returning it to its usual position. I put the tub I'd had my pasta in the previous night in the sink to wash up later, and made myself some cheese on toast.

I wandered around the house looking for my parents and found my dad in the lounge watching some football on the TV, I sat on the sofa next to him, he said hi to me when I entered the room, but didn't look away from the game but when the team he obviously wasn't supporting scored a goal and he punched the arm of the sofa, I decided the lounge wasn't the safest place to sit. My dad can get very carried away when he is watching sport. He was known to have broken the light fitting once during a celebratory dance when his team had won some sort of cup or something, I don't know, I'm not very interested in sport of any kind.

I walked to the study and heard the tapping of keys on the computer in there so I knew where my mother was, the door was slightly open so I peaked around the corner and saw my mum sitting at the computer typing faster than the speed of light. It always amazed me how fast my mother could type, I had tried to learn to touch type but I always put the letters in the wrong order so I just ended up with complete gobbledegook.

I forgot the door was able to move as I shifted my weight towards it, and made a rather loud and ungraceful entrance to the room. Stopping my mother in, what looked like, mid-sentence as she spun around in her chair to see me landing on my bottom and causing a pile of crumbs to fly into the wall opposite the door. My mother took one look at me at cracked up laughing.

"I'm glad I amuse," I said trying to get up

"Sorry but that was quite an entrance, even for you." It was true; I usually end up making an idiot of myself at least once a day.

"Your father and I are going to go for a walk after the football is over, would you like to come?"

"Sure mum, but can you have a look at my maths homework I'm not sure if I've got the right idea with it."

"Of course, bring it in"

"But I thought you were doing work?"

"It's nothing I can't do tomorrow!"

"Thanks mum"

I went back to the tree house and got my school bag and laptop and took them to my mum's study. We spent the rest of the time my dad was watching the football game checking through my maths homework (I got most of it right the second time round) and just chatting about nothing of any consequence.

After the football game ended we decided to go for a walk, it wasn't raining, which was a nice change. As always I took my iPod with me on the walk and stayed at least 10 steps in front of my parents, I don't really like being seen out with them, I am a typical teenager in that respect. Although it wasn't actually raining, it was very muddy under foot and the trees kept dripping water on my head as I walked under them.

We walked for ages and were all really tired when we got home so we decided to order a curry so no one had to cook. After dinner I had a shower and got my things ready for school the next day, and was in bed before 9. So I was a little too excited about going to school, but I had a very good reason. Michael. He actually knew I existed and had spoken to me a lot more than I could have ever hoped he would. I fell asleep listening to Jimmy Eat World's amazing song 'A Praise Chorus'.

* * *

AN: Hope you liked. Let me know other wise I won't know where to go with the rest of the story :S

Like I said, next chapter will be a bit longer I promise.


	7. Was it a dream?

AN: This is a bit quicker at finding it's way out of my head and onto my computer! It just seems so much easier with Michael around. Hehe. So easy I have actually written Michael's POV along side this chapter, I just need to do some tweaking and then it will be up, who knows I might be able to post two chapters today! The title for this chapter is from a 30 Seconds to Mars song, it also gave me alot of inspirationfor this chapter.  
Anyway enough frome me, on with the story.

Enjoy...

* * *

The next day I woke up to the sound of rain beating against my window and looked outside to see it was barely light and I had a river going down my street. I got up and dressed for school, and went for my breakfast, just as I had finished my mobile phone rang, it was Kelly telling me to stay at home and that she and James would be around in a while to pick me up for school. I was extremely glad I didn't have to walk in the rain.

They came about 5 minutes later. I ran to the car partly because I didn't want to get wet, but also because I wanted to get to school. It was so silly, I didn't even have history today, so I couldn't have a proper conversation with Michael but I knew I had two lessons with him so I was eager to get into the English class first thing.

James pulled up outside the main entrance to the school. Kelly and I both thanked him as we got out the car and ran to the shelter of the school. Everyone else was doing the same-rushing around with folders over their heads as if they were going to melt if the rain touched them. When we got inside I was still rushing towards my locker. The quicker I get rid of my bag the quicker I can get into English.

"You know, it's not raining in here."

"Oh I know." I replied to Kelly, without slowing down.

"So why are you rushing?"

"No reason," I slowed down slightly, to let Kelly catch up.

"Are you that interested in English?"

"No,

"Well why are you walking nearly as fast as my brother drives?"

"I'm not," I tried to be casual as I flung my locker open grabbed my English folder, threw my bag in and slammed it shut again.

"You are. See? Wait up!" She was right, but quite silly if she didn't realise why I was rushing.

We turned the corner towards the English class just as Kelly was finally keeping up with me. I skidded to a stop as soon as I did though, causing Kelly to bump into me.

I couldn't move. There he was, my memory over the weekend of him didn't do him justice. Michael was leaning against the wall outside our English class talking to his brother.

"Oh now I know why we were rushing. Although I would like a warning next time you stop that suddenly. Why did you stop exactly? I thought you two were on talking terms now."

"That was Friday, what if he isn't talking to me now?"

"Don't be silly Lyd; of course he will still be talking to you. What? Do you think you dreamed up last week?"

"I wouldn't think that's totally unlikely of me."

"True you do have a rather interesting imagination, but that would be a lot even for you!"

"I know but I still can't help but think that I imagined some of last week, it just seemed too good to be true."

"Well walk over to him and say hi as you go past, if he says hi, then you're still ok,"

"Yeh, but what if he doesn't say anything?"

"He will,"

"But what do I do if he doesn't?" I knew what I would do, I would go and crawl into a big hole and stay there for the rest of my days, or maybe move somewhere else, or maybe just end it. OK that was a little morbid. What has happened to me?

"Just keep walking into class and call your self crazy!" she was laughing but I would honestly call myself crazy if that did happen, and a few other names.

I walked towards the English class where Michael was still talking to William. He hadn't looked up once since I had come round the corner. My feet felt like they were walking through glue as I made my way, no faster than a snail, to the door. With every step closer I got, my mouth got drier and my throat was getting a bigger lump in the middle of it that was threatening to take over my whole mouth within seconds.

I made it to the classroom door and looked up at Michael he wasn't even looking at me even though I was right in front of him. Now or never I thought to myself.

"Hi,"

My mouth had dried out so much I could barely hear myself. I knew Michael had heard me though; his eyes briefly flashed to me then back to his brother. I felt a hand on my back pushing me into class. I realised it was Kelly, she guided me to our table, took my folder out of my hands and placed it on my side of the table. I collapsed into the chair and buried my head in my hands. I called my self all the different names for 'stupid' that I could think of until I heard Mrs Spenser tell the class to quieten down. I looked up but kept my chin resting on my arms on the desk.

I knew it. I had managed to dream up the lessons I had with Michael the previous week. They had all seemed so real though. It had only been three days since he had turned round in this very class, in the same exact chair he was in now, and had asked me if I was feeling ok. Had that been a dream too? I spent the whole lesson trying to think of ways to prove that I had or hadn't made it all up. I couldn't think of many, I had told Kelly about our conversations but I could have made them up from nothing, the only things that were certain were the facts that I had gone with him in Drama and sat next to him in history, unless I had made that up as well.

After English I had French, but instead of going towards the language block, I went in the opposite direction and went back to my locker, telling Kelly that I needed to get a book. Really I had thought of one thing that would prove I had at least sat next to and spoken to him, the History sheet that he had filled out. I got to my locker and opened it. I took my folder out and opened it up, there on the top was the worksheet with Michael's amazing handwriting all over it. I knew it, I'm not mad, but why didn't he say hello? Maybe it was because he was with his brother? None of them had really made any friends while they had been here, maybe William would be jealous? Of me? Ha! No way. Well I would just have to ask him next History lesson or maybe in Drama. I made my way slowly to French, I really didn't want to be there though. I just wanted to crawl into my locker and hide for the rest of the day.

For the first time that morning I was glad that I didn't have History today. I promised myself I wouldn't think about Michael until I really had to, like when I was sitting next to him. That was easier said than done though. As I walked into my French class I saw Michael walking over to a desk and sit down at it. I looked around, there was a free table at the back, and there was an empty chair next to Michael. That was it, all the other spaces had been taken. I wished I had been in class earlier so I could have sat somewhere and waited to see if he would sit next to me, instead I had to choose where to go.

I stayed at the back knowing that he wouldn't want me to sit next to him. If he had, he would have spoken to me outside English.

I sat at the empty table in the corner and leaned my head on my arm again waiting for my French teacher to start the lesson.

The French teacher started by going around the room asking everyone to tell the class a couple of things about themselves. In French of course. I'm sure it was just for her to test how good we were at French. She started on the front row and worked her way along and the back a row and then along and so on. This meant I would be the last one she would get to. I wanted the wall to swallow me up. With every person that answered I willed it more and more, but obviously it didn't happen.

When it was Michael's turn he said his name, birthday, family and a few other things that I had no idea about in a perfect French accent. Of course. He is good at everything, why was I so surprised? Possibly because this was the first time I had heard his voice since Friday.

After he had his turn I went back to willing the wall to eat me, when I decided that was a lost cause I started willing the fire alarm to go off, that didn't work either and when it got around to my turn I wished I had spent my time concentrating on what other people had said rather than wishing for a way out of doing it, but I realised this a little bit too late; just as the teacher turned to me and waited for my answer. I am hopeless with foreign languages, I just don't get it.

"J'mappele… Lydia….je suis….. 17 ans…. J'habite en… ennuyant l'Angleterre."

At least I got a laugh from most of the class when I told them I live in boring England. I could tell most of the class were looking at me unfortunately I could also feel Michael's eyes burning into me, he was the other side of the room and I couldn't quite see him. I turned my head and I don't think I even looked him in the eye. I couldn't. I didn't want to. I just dropped my eyes to my book and drew cartoons in the margin. The end of the lesson came around eventually. I made my way to my locker and found Kelly waiting for me there.

"Can I call myself crazy now?" It was the only thing I could think to say to her.

"No! It was only one time, he was probably busy talking to his brother."

"I just had French with him and he totally ignored me in that too."

"Hmm, strange, are you in any more lessons with him today?"

"No I don't think so,"

"Well maybe he's just feeling ill or something, I'm sure he will be talking to you again tomorrow,"

I didn't believe her, but I couldn't be bothered to argue with her. I turned up for ICT a little apprehensive, but when we were 10 minutes into the lesson and he wasn't in there I was able to relax a little. We were making spreadsheets, I hate all of that, I really can't get my head around the formulas. I didn't see him at lunchtime and I was starting to think he had gone. Math with Kelly was as boring as ever after marking our homework we had to answer about a million questions, I only got about 12 done; my mind was somewhat elsewhere. We got let out early so I made my way to music eager for the day to be over.

I was one of the first people into the music room, I chose a keyboard on the second row back, put the headphones on and played around on the keys while I waited for the rest of the class. I played the first tune I had ever learned when I had piano lessons, I used to play this tune all the time back then, I was quite surprised I could still remember it.

Out the corner of my eye I noticed the class slowly enter. Then I recognised the pair of shoes walking along the front of the class. I thought how sad I must be if I actually recognise his shoes. As he walked past me, I looked up just to check it was him, and decide exactly how sad I was. The answer was extremely sad, it was him of course, he just kept walking past me though no sign that he even knew I was sitting there. I turned back to the keyboard and in my head decided I had done the right thing in French by not sitting with him, he obviously didn't want to be around me. This was going to make History interesting.

At the end of the lesson he rushed out of the class faster than I could turn the keyboard off. It was still raining so Kelly called her brother to beg him to pick us up, he did luckily, otherwise I might have ended up looking like a drowned rat. I went back to Kelly's house and we did our maths work together, Kelly is a lot better at maths than I am, she can actually seem to understand it. I don't really know why we are in the same group. After we had done our homework we did what typical teenage girls do, sat on Kelly's bed eating chocolate, listening to music and moaning about boys.

The rest of that night was extremely uneventful, and I went to sleep dreading going to school the next day. The complete opposite to how I went to sleep the previous night.

* * *

AN: I hope you liked it. I'm going to go and check through Michael's POV then post it up here. As always I love to hear what you think so please review. :D


	8. For your own good MPOV

AN: Wow 2 chapters in one evening, I think I'm spoiling you! hehe. Bit of an insight into why Michael is being so mean!

Enjoy ...

* * *

I was being horrible, I knew that but ignoring Lydia was better for her, safer and healthier as well. William and Emily had told me it was the best way to keep her safe, well actually they had said it was better for us if we didn't make friends while we were here 'being polite to people is one thing, but you can't spend too much time around her, what if she starts suspecting something? What if you let something slip that gives her the wrong idea? What if it gives her the_ right_ idea?'

It was alright for them, they had each other. Even if they didn't make a point of showing their real relationship around the school, I'm sure people could tell that they had a different one to that of a normal brother and sister, I heard some people put it down to 'what they must have been through after their parents had passed on'. I didn't have anyone like that, sure I got on with them but three is a crowd so I didn't like being around them too much at school, I give them their own space, just like I do at home. At least there I'm not the odd one in a group of three; I'm the odd one in a group of five. I'm not sure which is worse.

I was normally ok with it, but recently I've been feeling a bit left out, I think that's why I spent a lot of time talking to Lydia last week, I think she is the only person in this school who hasn't either thrown themselves at one of us or practically run a mile after making eye contact with us. She just acted like I was a normal person, I know that I am far from it but it is nice to feel like it even for an hour or two, I can't remember the last time someone treated me like she does, in fact I would go as far as to say I don't think anyone ever has.

And now I'm feeling even more like a monster for ignoring her all day. I didn't think it would be so hard to not notice her, but it's proven nearly impossible.

Her face when I didn't say hello back to her before English, that nearly broke me, but William was there to glare at me and snap me back to reality. Luckily she sits behind me in English so I didn't have to see that look again. Or so I thought.

When I heard her voice in French I thought she had followed me into the wrong class again like she had last year. I remember wondering, at the time, if she did that often. But she was honestly meant to be in my French class. And when I turned around to check it was her, her arm was holding her head up as if it was about to fall off any second, and although her face looked composed I could still see a little bit of hurt in her eyes and the way she snapped her eyes down to at her book and started doodling on it after she had caught my eye.

But that amount of pain couldn't be caused just from me not acknowledging her at the beginning of the day. Something must have been wrong before she had gotten to me, something at home, maybe something had happened over the weekend.

I would never know though, I wouldn't be able to just ask her, I might have if I had replied to her, but even if that wasn't the reason she was upset, I couldn't just talk to her, I had been off all day.

I thought it was going ok, two out of three lessons down after French and Lydia wasn't in either on of them, I had almost forgotten my problem as I walked to Music, my last lesson of the day. I like music, the fact I can play most instruments in your average orchestra might have something to do with why I love music so-being a vampire does have its advantages sometimes, for example the unlimited time to learn new things.

I was looking forward to music, that is until I walked into the class, there she was. Lydia was towards the front of the class, second row back on the end, she had the headphones on and was playing something on the keys, it seemed a simple melody. Luckily there were plenty of spare keyboards around so I didn't have to share with her, but I wondered if I should have gone over to her and asked to work with her. I wanted to. I wanted to tell Emily and William who they could tell their plans to, because I didn't want to pay attention to them. What sort of feelings had this girl stirred in me? I was always grateful to William, Emily, Charlotte and Frank for letting me tag along with them, I know they could have told me to get lost but they didn't and now here I was thinking of telling them to shove it, just because they had said it was safer for all of us if I didn't get too friendly with Lydia.

I was horrible. I am horrible. I should have died in the war rather than becoming immortal. So many other brave people had lost their lives during that hideous time, other people that deserved immortality so much more than me.

Lydia would be so much better off if she didn't know me. That's what I kept telling myself. That's how I eventually convinced my self to walk past her and sit at a keyboard towards the back of the class, rather than apologising for my behaviour earlier and asking to sit next to her, even if I did spend the entire lesson trying to play the little melody she had been playing as I entered the room, I finally got it at the end of the lesson, it sounded like a tune that would be taught to children learning the piano, or keyboard, a way to get them used to moving their hands around the keys. Every time I got a little carried away and imagined playing the tune with her I repeated 'she is better off this way, she is safer this way," In my head. That's how I managed to get up at the end of the class and walk away from her and the classroom rather than waiting for her and walking her to her locker and apologising to her.

She is better off this way.

She is safe this way.

My family's secret will be safe.

What about me? Will I be better off this way, will I be healthier this way?

It doesn't matter; as long as the people I care about don't get hurt then I'll be ok. I'll have to be, if I'm not then I'll find somewhere else to go.

* * *

AN: Hope you liked, I don't think I'll be able to get anymore chapters up this week. Start of next week though maybe.

Review please :D


	9. I don't want to waste my tears over you

AN: You've really gotta feel sorry for Lydia in this chapter, I feel sorry for her and I'm the one writing it!

Enjoy...

* * *

Tuesday was exactly the same; lots of rain, no acknowledgement from Michael, feeling down because of both of these reasons-I knew which one affected me the most, I had learnt not to expect anything great from the English weather.

I didn't see Michael very much, but when I did he didn't show any signs of noticing me. I didn't see him at all through science which didn't really surprise me considering he isn't in the same class as me. Drama was a little different though, although he was in the class with me he sat at the opposite end of the room from me at the start while the teacher was telling us what to do that lesson and when we got told to find groups of about 3 or 4 he just turned to the boys sitting closest to him. Obviously I didn't just sit there and watch him. Well ok maybe I did a little, but I could see him quite easily from where I sat, near the back of the class. I looked around and saw a couple of girls from my science class and worked with them, we got on surprisingly well, we knew of each other being in school together for the last couple of years, but we never really had a chance to get to know each other very well. It looked like I might get to know them very well this year if Michael's behaviour the last 2 days were anything to go by. I was certain he wouldn't ever speak to me again, I just couldn't think what I had done wrong.

Break time found me moping around in the Café with Kelly. She was in an extremely good mood because Jack was in her French class just before break and they shared a table and got chatting, apparently in French, and he told her he liked her top. I really didn't want to dampen her mood by saying telling her that he was probably just limited with his French, so I just smiled and nodded and said the occasional 'good' where it was needed. It wasn't that I wasn't happy for her, I was glad she thought it was going well, I was just a little bit deflated that Michael couldn't have done something like that for me, rather than acting like I didn't exist. Obviously he acted like that at the end of last year, but after all the things we talked about last week, I felt a little hurt, ok, I felt very hurt.

After break we had English, we were one of the first ones into the class, Kelly was eager to get there to have another chat with Jack. I sat down at the desk and made a start on my English work since I had been too upset by Michael's reaction the previous day to do any work. He came in and sat at his desk after a few minutes, didn't look at me, and I didn't make it obvious that I was looking at him, I just tried to get on with my work.

The rest of the day didn't mean anything to me, nothing of any interest happened. That is until I got home, I did my homework as usual as soon as I got home. I ate dinner with my parents as usual, I had a shower same as usual, I got into my bed listening to my music, same as usual. I cried myself to sleep, not the same as usual.

***

Wednesday was exactly the same as Tuesday, I paid as much attention to the class as I had to, but couldn't remember what we learnt about. I was doing fine up until lunch. After that everything went downhill. I walked to English with Kelly, again she was very eager to get there, I probably would have been too if it hadn't been for a certain someone. We got to English and found that Jack and a couple of others were already there. We were there before Mrs Spenser, I swear that woman needs to get her self a watch. As we sat around on the tables waiting I noticed Kelly and Jack were very close, and it nearly looked like they were holding hands.

They hugged and that's when I lost it. I didn't shout or scream or throw anything, I didn't loose it in that way, that might have been better than what I did do. I took one look at them and immediately looked to where I knew Michael would be sitting – I had seen him come in the class out of the corner of my eye. And instead of seeing the back of his head as I had gotten used to the last couple of days there he was looking at me and smiling.

No he wasn't looking at me, he was looking at Kelly and Jack and smiling, it wasn't a natural smile though, it looked like he was almost jealous. I couldn't control it, a million feelings burst out of me in that second. I could feel my eyes start to prickle and I knew I couldn't cry in the class, I grabbed my bag and ran, I ran out the door, down the corridor. I didn't know where I was headed until I got there. I threw my bag in my locker and kept going, out the side exit of the school, over to the woods that surrounded the back of the school, and straight up a tree. I was crying by now, but I didn't care no one could see me now, and my tears were mixing with the rain splashing against my face that I couldn't really tell which water was from my eyes and which was from the clouds.

I calmed down while sitting in the tree, they make me feel very safe, I'm not sure why, I think it's because my tree house at home is my safe place. I heard the bell go for the start of last lesson, I couldn't go to music. No matter how much I love messing around on a keyboard, I couldn't face being in the same room as him.

Once I was sure everyone would be in their last classes of the day I went to my locker to get my bag. I looked in the back of my diary to see if I had a spare page to write a quick note to Kelly but as I looked I saw the timetable I had started last week when we had come back, with Michael's lessons on, I pulled out that page, ripped it up and threw it in the bin, promising myself that I wouldn't think about him anymore, it would be hard I knew that but I had to try otherwise I would be running out of classes on a daily basis. I went back over to my locker and wrote Kelly a quick note:

Gone home, not well, see you tomorrow.  
Lyd

And posted it through the side of her locker.

When I got home I did the exact same as the night before. I did my homework as soon as I got home. I ate dinner with my parents, I had a shower, I got into my bed listening to my music and I cried myself to sleep.

This isn't healthy.

***

The next morning I got woken up in a very unusual way, there was light coming through my curtains, very bright light at that. It was sunny! The weather forecaster said the sun was in for a couple of days. I decided today was as good a time as any to sort myself out. I decided I wouldn't let anything Michael did or didn't do bother me. This turned out to be easier than I thought it would; he wasn't even in school, his brother and sister weren't there either. I didn't spend half as much time thinking about their absence as I would have before.

The day was fairly normal and I was able to concentrate in lessons more than any other day so far that week. I still cried that night but it wasn't for as long as the previous nights. Friday was sunny again, and again Michael and his siblings were nowhere to be found.

Kelly and Jack were now going out, but Kelly could tell I wasn't totally happy, at first I think she thought it had something to do with her and Jack and after I convinced her it had nothing to do with them, she decided it was about time for a girly-sleepover-weekend. I agreed and went to hers that night, we had planned to watch some chick flicks, but we decided Disney was a whole lot better!

We went through every Disney DVD we could find at Kelly's house (there are a lot due to the number of children in the family) over the weekend and I explained to Kelly the gist of my problems, she gave me the answer that all best friends are obliged to say 'Don't worry about him, he's being a jerk.' and 'If he can't see how great you are then he isn't worth it.' it made me feel a little better and by Sunday evening I had a much more positive look on things.

***

Monday morning was back to rain, cloud and fog. It wasn't raining when I left the house but it looked like it was about to, and it did, just as we got to school. I thought that was very good luck, but that's where my luck ran out. I couldn't get my locker open, but after 10 minutes of hitting, kicking shouting and glaring at it, I finally managed to open it. this put me in a wonderful mood for English first lesson, and just as I thought my day couldn't get any worse, it did.

I walked into English and there was Michael sitting at his table that had been empty for the second half of the previous week. This didn't make my day too much worse, I knew I would have to see him at some point.

No, it was the long haired thing that was sitting next to him. I say thing because the moment I walked into the class and saw it I was praying that it was just some longhaired boy that had joined our English group, but as I said before, my day was going from bad to worse.

I sat down with Kelly and said hey to Jack and tried to listen and join in on their conversation even though it mainly consisted of 'I missed you.'

The one time I would have been quite happy for Mrs Spenser to be late to class she was on time, remember, not my day. She called everyone's attention and introduced 'Mary' to the rest of the class. I mean who is called Mary these days? It sounds like something from the bible or something. Stupid name.

She was tall, had lovely shiny hair and a face you just wanted to slap.

Maybe that last one was just me, but even if she hadn't been deep in conversation with the obsession of my life for the first five minutes of the lesson, I still don't think I would have liked her. She definitely wouldn't like me, she seemed like one of those amazingly popular people that could come into school wearing a bin bag and all the little sheep would wear one the next day just to be a part of her group. I'm pretty sure I was staring daggers at her the entire lesson. I was extremely glad when the bell went.

I walked to French faster than I had the week before, eager to have Mary out of sight. I walked into French and nearly had myself a heart attack. There she was again, sitting next to Michael having a nice long chat with him before the lesson started, was she following him around or are those two just joined at the hip? I didn't want to know the answer.

The rest of the day was the same, wherever I saw Michael I saw Mary. I was extremely glad when I got home, and guess what. Yes I cried myself to sleep yet again, this was the worst though. I just wanted the bed to swallow me up like the guy in Nightmare on Elm Street. I didn't want to go to school, and I didn't want to see Michael, or more importantly I wanted Mary to go back to wherever it was she came from and leave me alone to sort out my already complicated life.

* * *

AN: Please let me know what you think, appologies to anyone who is called Mary, first name I thought of, and obviously Lydia wouldn't like her no matter what her name was.

Review? Please.


	10. What's changed?

AN: First of all, Sorry it's been so long, I've been away, and then I had to write an assignment for college, but you don't want to hear bout that, main thing is I've finished my course now so I'll be able to write lots and lots on here :)

Second I had a few problems getting this right so please let me know what you think.

Enjoy ...

* * *

The next day came too quick in my opinion. It didn't seem like nine hours had gone past, it felt like two seconds after my eyes had closed that my mother was waking me up. Of course in the few seconds it took me to wake up completely I had forgotten all of my worries. But as soon as I looked at my timetable for the day to see what lessons I had, I soon remembered why I had cried my self to sleep yet again and why I had wished I wouldn't have to go to school. Obviously I did have to go to school though, so I went through my morning ritual pretty much on auto-pilot whilst thinking of ways to get out of having to go to school.

Unfortunately by the time I was showered, dressed and fed I hadn't thought of anything that would be able to be passed off as a good enough excuse for me not to go to school, so I got my bag and started my walk to Kelly's house. I was about half way down the road when I noticed it wasn't raining, it wasn't sunny either but at least it wasn't raining, though it looked like it would before the end of the day.

I walked rather slowly to Kelly's trying to put off the inevitable. But I seemed to reach her house quicker than usual, oh well at least I would have to wait for her to be ready.

No such luck.

Going to be another one of those days is it?

I got to Kelly's house and she was actually waiting for me outside, that never happens. It probably has something to do with her being impatient to see Jack.

We made it to school much quicker than I wanted to, but I had decided that the sooner I got to school the sooner I would have the lessons and the sooner I would be able to go home and hide.

Maths was as boring as ever, I just couldn't concentrate. I found it hard to concentrate on maths before Michael came to the school, I found it even harder trying to concentrate when he joined the school, harder still when he decided to ignore me for no apparent reason, so it is practically impossible for me to concentrate now that I am trying to think of ways to get rid of Mary. I'm not sure what that will achieve really, but subconsciously I know there would be some sort of gain from not having her around.

She was there in drama as well. Surprise, surprise! It didn't make too much difference to me though I wouldn't have worked with Michael anyway, I was forming a fairly good friendship with Ella and Josie, the two girls that were also in my science class, it turns out we all have a lot in common, we like the same music, we all love reading and although we like drama we are all fairly shy people. All the groups went off into practice rooms to continue our project and, like the hard working girls we are, we spent the first 20 minutes of the lesson discussing the new album Ella had bought over the weekend. She had loaded it onto her iPod and we all listened to it. I thought it was really good although I hadn't heard of the band before. Ella said she would burn me a copy of the CD.

That was the best thing about Tuesday, I managed to make it through the rest of the day knowing that I was getting that bit closer to being able to hide in my room. Michael had his shadow in English again, that's what I had decided to call her since they were inspirable it reminded me a little of Peter Pan where he is trying to get his shadow to stick to him, although this Peter Pan didn't seem to have a problem with keeping his shadow with him. I tried as hard as I could to just concentrate in my work during the lesson. Luckily neither of them were in my lessons during that afternoon.

I walked home with Kelly as usual and did my homework as soon as I got home, I ate dinner with my parents and again cried my self to sleep.

***

Kelly and I made it to school quite early again on Wednesday and I hurried off to science where I knew I wouldn't see Peter Pan or his shadow. Ella and Josie were already sitting at our table when I got there and as I sat down I noticed a CD case on my desk. It was the one Ella had burnt for me, she was extremely organised. I put it in my bag and promised her I would listen to it as soon as I got home.

The rest of the day went by without much significance. I even kept it together during music even though I knew Peter Pan and his shadow were sharing the keyboard directly behind me. Since we were in the same English class we had been dismissed at the same time and consequently arrived at music at the same time, even though I had purposefully gone a different way to them. When we had arrived the rest of the class were already there placed at keyboards and there were only two left, one in the front row and the one directly behind it. I quickly chose the one in front, not wanting to stare at the back of their heads all lesson.

It was still extremely annoying though, knowing they were just behind me. The part of me that still obsessed over Michael was panicking about what my hair must have looked like. The part of me that was jealous of the shadow, yes jealous, wanted to turn around and hit her. And the rest of me (about 2% if that) was trying to concentrate on what it was I was supposed to be playing on the keyboard.

This was extremely difficult, even though I had headphones on with the backing track turned up as loud as it would go I could still hear them talking and laughing. I think I might have taken out my anger on the keys a few times and by the look I got from the teacher, he noticed too.

As soon as the bell went I pulled the plug out of the keyboard and quickly fled the room and rushed to my locker.

When I got home, after I finished my homework for the night I put the CD in my laptop and copied all the tracks onto my iPod.

***

On Thursday Kelly and I had maths first thing, it was as confusing as ever but Kelly was able to help me with it. We got to English and as soon as we got there Kelly and Jack became totally inseparable, and I noticed Peter Pan and his shadow were chatting away and laughing with each other. I tried not to think about anything else and decided to get on with my autobiography since it was due in the week after next and I hadn't really done any work on it.

I was writing about my early childhood, about a holiday I had been on one year with my parents and grandparents the last one my Granddad joined us on. We had gone camping near the seaside and on this particular day I was having a bit of a strop about not being allowed and ice cream before breakfast. I wouldn't eat anything until I had my ice cream and my parents weren't sure what to do with me. My Granddad made a puppet sort of thing out of his tissue and said that tissue puppets weren't lucky enough to get any food at all and that if I shared my toast with 'Achoo' the tissue puppet, then I would be able to have an ice cream when we got to the beach. Like any child with that sort of temptation, I ate all my toast up except for the crust which I let 'Achoo' have and practically dragged my Granddad to the beach hut that sold ice creams.

I had just finished writing the story when the bell went. I realised I had a silly grin on my face from thinking about that holiday. As I walked out of the class I was still thinking of the holiday and the other things we had gotten up to, it was break time so I followed Kelly and Jack to one of the benches outside, this is were we usually go these days as long as it isn't actually raining. I was still thinking about my Granddad and I remembered why that holiday was so special to me, it was the last time the whole family had gone on a holiday. The next one we planned my granddad couldn't go on because he was so ill and my Grandma had to stay behind to look after him and the one after that my Grandma had come with us, but my Granddad had died.

I sat on the bench just thinking about my granddad and trying to remember things about him, it was then I noticed Kelly looking at me with a worried expression on her face, I also realised that my cheek was wet, I looked around to try and see the rain, but I couldn't see any. I wiped my cheek and realised the water hadn't come from a cloud, but it had come from my eye. Without saying anything Kelly took her arm off Jack's shoulder where it had been ever since we had sat on the bench, slid closer to me and gave me a hug. I just leant on her and cried for pretty much the rest of break time. Just before the bell went for next lesson Kelly walked me to the girls' toilets and handed me numerous pieces of tissues from one of the cubicles.

Once my eyes had finished leaking she told me to lean over the basin and she splashed water on to my face, it was really refreshing. I thought how lucky I was to have a best friend like Kelly who didn't ask questions if people just burst into tears, instead she just took care of them, I suppose it has something to do with having younger siblings to look after.

"Thanks Kelly,"

"No problem, are you ok?"

"Yeh, I was writing about my Granddad in my autobiography in English and I was thinking about him and I didn't even realise I was crying," I tried to force a laugh and a smile but I don't think she bought it.

"Oh, ok. Will you be alright in History?"

Urgh. History could I hate that lesson any more than I already did?

Probably.

"Yeah, I'll be fine see you at lunch."

"Ok, if you're sure,"

"Yeh, see you later,"

"Alright, see you,"

On the way to History I realised this would be the first lesson of History I would have with Michael since he had started ignoring me. I wondered where I would have to sit since his shadow would obviously be next to him now.

I didn't have much time to think this through and before I knew it I was at the classroom door. Was it really only two weeks ago that I had followed Michael through this door? I quickly shook that thought out of my head, it wasn't the best direction to go, it was guaranteed to make me feel worse.

I opened the door and there were only a couple of people in there, none of which were Peter Pan and his shadow. I went and sat down at my place, they could find somewhere else to sit, I was staying put thank you.

The class started to fill, Mr Wire was sitting behind his desk waiting for the class to all enter the room and settle down. I was looking through the textbook when I heard the chair next to me move, I took a deep breath and looked out the corner of my eye to see Michael placing his own books on the desk while he sat down. I turned my attention back to my book and waited for either him or his shadow to ask me to move.

Nothing happened.

I turned my head away from Michael and looked around the half of the class I could see.

No shadow.

How odd, maybe Peter Pan really had lost his shadow after all. I certainly wasn't going to be Wendy and sew them back together. No thank you. I would rather feed them to the ticking Crocodile. I turned my head towards him sure I would see the shadow on his other side.

Not there either.

I did however see something I wished I hadn't. Michael was sat there looking at me. Immediately I snapped my eyes back to the book in front of me but it was too late, he had seen me looking at him.

"Are you ok?" Oh that voice, I haven't heard it in so long. Wait. He's talking to me now?

_No I'm not, can't you tell I've been crying? And for the first time in two weeks it isn't anything to do with you!_

"Fine,"

"It's just, your eyes, they look red, like you've been crying,"

Oh brilliant time to start to notice things, why couldn't he have noticed how hurt I had been when he just ignored me last week?

"I'm fine,"

I don't think I've ever been so glad to hear Mr. Wire call everyone's attention as I was in that minute. I listened to the input for the lesson half heartedly. The part of me that still obsessed over Michael was having a little party because of the fact he had spoken to me, and the rest of me was just trying to work out what was so different that had make him talk to me and appear to be concerned.

* * *

AN: Let me know what you thought, I promise I'll have the next chapter up very soon.

Review?


	11. I'm dangerous

AN. Darn internet, haven't been able to get online in a while.

Enjoy...

* * *

Teachers always pick the best times to do pair work.

I was counting on the fact we would be copying from books or listening to Mr. Wire talk all lesson and have to make notes, but oh no. We had to work in pairs to make a presentation about one thing during World War II. The best thing was we had to work with the person sitting next to us.

A week or two ago I would have loved this, however now I really just want to be left to my own devices and not have to explain to Michael why my eyes are red nor do I want to freak out at him for ignoring me for the last two weeks. Obviously doing a project about WWII with Michael wouldn't be difficult at all, he knows enough about the subject to probably teach the topic better than Mr. Wire, this could also be a bad thing, if he didn't know so much, we would have to spend time actually researching things, instead he will be able to put all the information down in less than a second and then be free to interrogate me as to why I have been crying, and as much as I love putting on a sob story for people at school, I really don't want to go into detail about my Granddad with Michael.

Mr Wire told us we were allowed to use the books at the front of the class and he had also booked the computer room across the hall so we could use that if we wanted.

I didn't even have to look at Michael to know he was looking at me, he had been all lesson and I could feel my skin growing very hot where he was staring. I continued to gaze at my folder.

"So what is our presentation going to be on then?"

"Lydia, are you…"

"I'm fine, please don't do this,"

"Do what?"

I didn't answer, I couldn't. All of my energy was being focused on not looking at him.

"Ok, lets go to the computer room and research things about World War II shall we?"

"Ok,"

We stood up, picked up our books and bags and headed for the door. Michael reached it first and actually held it open for me. I actually had to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying something about his 'manners class' failing to teach the fact that it is extremely rude to ignore someone and no matter how many doors you hold for them, they are very unlikely to forgive you.

I hadn't realised that no one else in the class had come to the computer room until Michael and I entered it. Michael obviously had noticed the room was empty because as soon as we were in the room, he started questioning me.

"What is the matter Lydia?"

"Nothing, I'm fine,"

"Your eyes are all red. You must have been crying. Tell me what is wrong, please,"

We were both sat down at the computers now and he had turned my chair round so I didn't have many options except to look at him, darn swivel chairs. I tried to turn my chair back towards the computer but Michael was too strong, so instead I turned my body round and logged into the computer.

"Lydia please tell me, have I done something? Oh don't cry please,"

I hadn't even realised a tear was making its way down my cheek until Michael said about it. I was still staring at the computer screen willing it to load up quicker. Out the corner of my eye I saw Michael get something out of his pocket. It was a tissue. I thought he was going to give it to me, but instead he wiped the tear off my cheek himself.

That was it, all the emotions that had been building up inside me for the last few weeks all burst out of me; anger, hurt, excitement, hate, love and loads of others that I couldn't name in that second. I was crying completely now and Michael gave up with trying to wipe all the tears away and handed the tissue to me.

"Look, Lydia, I am sorry for being so rude to you, but it is best. I am extremely sorry if I have hurt you, and it would probably be best if you didn't forgive me. It's not safe for you to be too near to me. I'm dangerous."

I couldn't believe he thought I was crying because of him. I wouldn't be that silly. I wouldn't cry about him, well not in front of him anyway. I finally found my voice, even though it was very quiet and high pitched.

"That's not why I'm crying. I mean sure I was a bit confused about you ignoring me, but I'm not crying about it,"

"Well then why.."

"I asked you not to say about it, but since you wont give up then I suppose I'll have to tell you, if it will shut you up about it," ok I was getting a little stressed by this point. "In English we were writing our autobiographies and I started writing about my granddad and I was thinking about him, and the last time I saw him properly, and it just sort of got to me."

He didn't say anything, and it finally gave me time to think about what he had said before. He was sorry for being rude to me, ha! Sure he was. What did he mean by it being best?

And what was that about it being better if I didn't forgive him, well I wasn't really planning on doing that any time soon.

Then I remembered something he had said, and realised I must have been very stressed out if I hadn't noticed that he said it would be safer for me to stay away.

"Why did you call yourself dangerous?"

Now he was typing away on his computer, he was ignoring me, again.

"Michael, don't ignore me again, please,"

No answer.

"Could you at least give me some sort of warning when you are going to be like this?"

"Lydia, I am sorry, but I don't know what to say,"

"You could tell me why you called yourself dangerous,"

"I can't, even if I wanted to, I just can't."

Ok that's enough; I've had it with him now. I pulled the plug out of the computer, probably wouldn't do it any good but I was in too much of a mood to log out properly, and headed for the door with my bag over my shoulder. As I reached the door I heard the log out tune, it would seem Michael wasn't as stressed out as I was. I flung the door open and ran down the corridor, praying that he wouldn't follow me, not that he would, he had just said that it was best if we weren't around each other.

I ran down the stairs and out the first doors I got to. It was a little courtyard with a couple of benches around a pond. It was the view from the window in the computer room; I had looked out at it many times but never actually been there. It was raining again, but I didn't notice that first. What caught my eye was the figure sitting on the bench, it was impossible, how had Michael got here before me, there was only one way out, and that was the was I had come.

* * *

AN. Ooh, how did he get there? Magic? You will just have to wait and see, hopefuly not too long though, I am sorry if it takes a while to get the next chapter up though, internet is still being annoying.

Reviews, please?


	12. What are you?

AN. I found this chapter really hard to write. I hope you like it, sorry it's a bit short

* * *

I ran down the stairs and out the first doors I got to. It was a little courtyard with a couple of benches around a pond. It was the view from the window in the computer room; I had looked out at it many times but never actually been there. It was raining again, but I didn't notice that first. What caught my eye was the figure sitting on the bench, it was impossible, how had Michael got here before me, there was only one way out, and that was the was I had come.

It was crazy, I must be going mad. I turned around and headed back to the door. It was stuck, I couldn't open it.

I looked up and noticed a hand holding the door shut. Michael. Impossible, he was sitting at a bench on the other side of the courtyard. He wouldn't have been able to get to me so fast, but he shouldn't have been able to get out here before I had. Was he some sort of superman figure, able to fly and move quicker than light? With super-human strength?

I was still facing the door trying to get it open with no success.

"What are you?"

"If I told you, I would have to kill you,"

"Ha ha. So does that mean you're a secret agent? Like James Bond?"

He didn't answer. I turned round to face him; he was just staring at the section of the door his hand was leaning on.

"Michael, you know you're really confusing me. Why won't you tell me anything?"

"I can't, Lydia, I just can't"

"Please, is it a secret? I promise I wouldn't tell anyone. Have I done something?"

"Of course you haven't done anything. I know its cliché but it really is me. I don't want to hurt you, but it seems that's my only option, whatever I do I seem to hurt people."

"You wouldn't hurt me if you would only talk to me."

"That's the thing, I don't talk to you because I don't want to hurt you, but that in its self seems to hurt you."

"How could talking to me hurt me?"

"My being here is potentially dangerous."

"Stop calling yourself dangerous!"

"But it's the truth,"

"How are you dangerous?"

"Just believe that I am, maybe I will be able to tell you one day, but at the moment I can't."

I was about to ask him to elaborate or promise me that he would tell me soon but I was distracted by the bell and the fact that it was now lunchtime. I wanted to stay and talk to him, but I knew Kelly would be looking for me all over the school if I wasn't in the café especially since I was crying at break. There was however one thing I needed to know. One thing that would let me know what to tell Kelly when she asked me why I was late to lunch. One thing that had the ability to make me depressed again, but I just had to know.

"Will you tell me one thing?"

"I'll try, but it depends what it is,"

"Who is Mary?"

He looked at me, confused. Obviously not expecting that question.

"What?"

"Well obviously I know who she is, but who is she to you? Like is she a friend or what?"

"Oh, ummm, she's my cousin, well my adopted cousin. She's staying with us for a few months, she's from America."

He still looked confused, but I wasn't planning on telling him why I had to know that. I tried to stop the huge grin from forming on my face when I realised there was nothing going on between Michael and Mary. I hadn't realised he was still leaning on the door until his hand dropped to his side, brushing my shoulder on the way. It barely touched me but he pulled it away and jumped backward so fast that it took a couple of seconds for my eyes to realise where he was. I blinked a few times and when my eyes had adjusted he had closed his eyes and was running his hand though his hair, obviously waiting for me to ask him how he had moved so fast. I really wanted to know but he clearly didn't want to tell me and I didn't want to have another argument with him so I decided to just let it go, and wait for him to explain everything to me.

"I'll see you later."

I turned around, opened the door and walked to lunch in the best mood I had been in weeks.

I got to the café where Kelly was too involved with Jack to notice me grinning to myself. I sat down with them and ate my lunch, still with the grin on my face. I went to PE with the grin still on my face, the first time in my life I was happy during PE! And I was still grinning all through DT.

I was happy all evening at home, even my parents said they hadn't seen me this cheerful in a while. I did my homework with the grin still there and I didn't cry myself to sleep that night.

* * *

AN. Again I'm very sorry it's a short chapter. I hope you liked it, let me know please. :)


	13. Confusion

Friday morning I was slightly doubtful that I hadn't dreamt up the previous day. I got ready for school and was still unsure by the time I was walking to Kelly's house.

We arrived at school and headed to our first lesson of the day, English. We were the last ones in the class to sit at our desk, and as I sat down I peeked at Michael. He was talking to Mary but noticed me and actually smiled at me. I still wasn't completely convinced I hadn't dreamt it though. The rest of the lesson entailed me sneaking glances at Michael in between doing my work and talking to Kelly. Michael didn't look at me again until the end of the lesson when he and Mary walked past my table. Mary was walking just in front of Michael while Kelly and I were putting our books away, obviously I looked up as soon as I saw Michael walking towards me and he smiled at me again as he walked past. Naturally I blushed and dropped my book, I swiftly threw my book into my bag and flung it over my shoulder. I thought Kelly hadn't seen our brief exchange but was proven wrong on the walk to maths.

"So, what was that about then?"

"What?"

"You and Michael, is something going on there?"

"What do you mean? Of course nothing is going on, you know that."

"Then why did you blush and drop your book when he smiled at you?"

Why does she have to notice everything? I tried to laugh it off.

"You know what I'm like. I'm not used to him smiling at me, he usually glares at me or just completely ignores me!" That was fairly true.

She didn't give up though, all through maths she kept asking questions and saying different things to trick me no doubt, but since I didn't know what was going on I couldn't really tell her anything not that I think would have told her anyway she isn't exactly the most discrete person in the world and if I had said something, no matter how insignificant, you can bet the whole school would have heard her exaggerated version of it before lunch. That was one of the downsides to Kelly, although we had been best friends for years and I knew I could trust her with secrets about specific things, she loved gossip a little too much and anything I had said about Michael would have been taken the wrong way and not classed as an important secret.

I felt so relieved when the bell rung for the end of the lesson. I'd had enough of being interrogated and just wanted to have some time with my own thoughts without having my guard up in case I let something slip.

In since I sat with Josie and Ella but tried to concentrate the best I could and participate. This wasn't particularly easy though, we were doing revision on a fairly simple topic so it didn't hold my interest completely and about ten minutes into the lesson I found my mind drifting to thoughts of Michael and wondering if he would be as open with me today as he was yesterday and if he would give me more answers. By the end of the lesson I had wound myself up rather successfully and still had no answers for myself.

At lunch I sat with Kelly as usual but couldn't stop myself searching the café for Michael. He wasn't there, none of his family were. I felt dejected but tried not to let it show on my face.

I made my way to drama long before the lesson was due to start, I wasn't sure if it was because I was eager to see if Michael would be there or if I had just had enough of watching Kelly and Jack sharing sweet nothings with each other.

I got to the class room before anyone else. It wasn't locked so I made my way to a seat and sat there reading my script and listening to my iPod while I waited for the rest of the class to join me. I was so engrossed in my script that I didn't even hear him come in or sit next to me. I only realised there was someone there when I heard a cough. I jumped and dropped my script on the floor. I took the headphones off and turned to look at who it was that had made me jump although I had quite a good idea who it was.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."

"Do you always creep around like that?"

"You had your music on quite loud,"

"It wasn't that loud, I never have my music on very loud."

"I could head it as soon as I walked in the room."

"Well you must have very good hearing then." He smirked.

"Maybe I do. What were you listening to?"

"Phil Collins, it's a song from the film Tarzan."

"I haven't seen that film."

"Really? I love it; you will have to watch it with me one day."

He smiled but before he could respond I heard a panicky, high pitched voice.

"Michael?" Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew who it was, but I still turned toward the door.

Mary looked both shocked and relieved for a fraction of a second until her face went completely expressionless. Michael just sat there smiling at her as she made her way to the seat next to him. Just as she reached it other members of the class entered the room. The rest of the lesson was normal, or at least as normal as drama could be, I went with Ella and Jessie and we spent most of the lesson just talking about music instead of doing any work and by the end of the lesson we were no further with out play than we were at the start of the lesson.

He caught up with me on the way to history. We entered the class and found a couple of people sitting at a table and Mr Wire sitting at his desk marking books. He looked up as we walked in and told us to get straight on with our presentation and said we could find some computers if we wanted. We decided that was a good idea. I wasn't sure if we would actually get on with our work or just spend the lesson talking but I was just glad to have some time with Michael.

We found an empty computer suite a little way down the corridor from our history room and decided to at least look like we were doing work. We sat on the back row and logged into the computers.

"We should probably do some work on this presentation."

"Yes we should,"

He moved the mouse around the screen slower than my dad did and that's saying something. It was only then that I realised he didn't seem to know his way around a computer. So I opened up a new power point page and set up the page with a back ground and title. I moved to the next slide and Michael told me some information to put on it, I typed it nearly as quick as he said it, then we moved to the next slide and did the same. It turned into a bit of a competition, Michael kept talking quicker and I kept typing. After about half an hour we had 24 slides packed with information and I had rather sore fingers.

"How did you learn to type like that?"

"Didn't learn it really, it just came naturally, I think I spend too much time on my laptop."

He laughed at this and took the keyboard from me, he opened a new project and tried to type some of the information he had already told me onto the page, it really didn't work and he got a little frustrated. I couldn't help giggling and told him that I taught myself to touch type by typing lyrics to songs while listening to them and then proved my point by getting my iPod out and typing the lyrics to 'You'll be in my heart' the song I was listening to at the start of drama. I spent the rest of the lesson trying to teach him how to use the computer and how to touch type, he was a very quick learner and by the end of the lesson he was typing nearly as quickly as me. When the bell went we logged the computers off and walked to my locker laughing about silly little things, it seemed so natural. I was in such a good mood I didn't even notice when Michael stopped in the middle of the corridor, I was laughing about how slow he had been typing at the start of the lesson and was waiting for a response, but there wasn't one, I looked to where I thought Michael would be but he was a few feet behind me just staring ahead, almost through me. I followed his eyes and looked in front of me, just coming out of a classroom were William, Emily and Mary. Immediately my instincts wanted to run away from them, they looked so fierce. Then I remembered who they were looking at and I instantly wanted to protect Michael.

I turned to look at him but he wasn't there, I wondered how he could have disappeared so fast then I remembered the previous day when he had reached the courtyard before me, and how quickly he had moved after his hand brushed my shoulder. I spun around to look at William, Emily and Mary again but they had also disappeared. The rest of the way to my locker I wondered what Charlotte and Frank were feeding them for them to be able to move that swift.

Kelly was at my locker waiting for me. Kelly was telling me all about Jack asking to meet up with her this weekend and where they planned to go. I was worrying about Michael and hoping he wouldn't get into too much trouble with his family, although I couldn't think of a reason any of them would have to not like me. I think Kelly could tell I wasn't completely concentrating on her and she asked me if I wanted to go bowling with them on Saturday and after I used the excuse of three being a crowd she said that she could ask jack to bring a friend as well. Luckily I had the excuse of homework to get me out of that situation. I didn't have loads of homework but I really didn't want to spend my weekend with Kelly and Jack.

When I got home my parents weren't there so I emptied my school bag. Then I decided to go up to my tree house to find some more pictures to use in my autobiography. I sat up there for a while listening to my iPod and choosing pictures to use in English. I went to greet my parents when I heard their car pull into the drive it was about 7 o'clock. We went out for dinner as it was too late for my mum to cook anything, it wasn't a great idea; restaurants are exceptionally busy on Friday evenings!

We got home about 10 and I think my parents went straight to bed, I however decided to get some homework done. I had lots of maths to do so I made a start on that. After about an hour of doing impossible equations my mind gave up. I put my books back in my bag and got my reading book out I don't remember any of it though as I was asleep in seconds.

* * *

AN. Sorry it's been a while, next chapter should be up soon. Have a listen to You'll be in my heart' the lyrics are quite important in the next chapter.


	14. You'll be in my heart

"I know you do not think it is a good idea for me to talk to her, but I can not help myself."

"What do you mean?"

"Surely you can control yourself can't you?"

"Of course I can, otherwise I would not be able to pass off as a human teenager in a school. If I could not control myself I would turn on everyone in this town."

"That's not what I meant, I know you can control that side of yourself, but can't you just do what Emily and I do and not get too close to humans? It's not safe."

"Not safe for who? Out of everyone in this house I am the only one that has not had human blood since they were turned."

I knew I had done it as soon as I said it, but I did not want to take it back, it was the truth, Lydia was safer with me than she was with any of the other members of my 'family' and I would not sit back and let William tell me what to do.

William flew at me literally, and if Mary had not rugby tackled him mid flight into the wall, I would have probably ended up in the middle of the fireplace I was currently standing in front of or maybe even through the wall and in the next room. Originally we had all been sitting around the conference table, although it was technically a dinner table, we obviously never ate dinner at it, so I had decided to call it a conference table since that was the only thing it was used for. After William and Emily saw me with Lydia again at the end of the day (Mary had not helped when she told them about me talking to Lydia before drama started) William called a family meeting as soon as Frank and Charlotte returned home from work, and that is where we had been for the past four hours. It had started rather civilised, with us all taking turns to raise points and trying to come up with a solution to all of this business with Lydia. However when William had started lecturing me on not letting our secret out, I had enough and could not sit still, so for the past hour I had been standing behind the chair I had previously been sitting on, now leaning on the back of it. I had decided it was a good idea to stop leaning on it when William started shouting at me and a lump of wood had dislocated itself from the back of the chair with a slight amount of help from my hands.

It was completely pointless, we were all hungry and irritated and we were not getting anywhere with our ideas. I glanced at Mary, who still had William in a vice grip on the floor, I could tell she was sorry for adding fuel to the fire and telling them about me talking to Lydia. We had met Mary a couple of years ago in the North of America, just before we came to England, she had been around a few more decades than I had but never really found anywhere to settle. Last week we found her while we were hunting and she offered to help me try and sort out some things.

Things that mainly involved Lydia.

Frank and Charlotte thought I needed someone to keep me company, they knew how difficult it was for me to be the odd one out, and since they had been together for nearly a century, they know how important that sort of bond is to those of us that have our way of life. To other vampires, the ones that drink human blood to sustain them, it is nice for them to have a mate but not always a necessity, but those of us who choose to get our sustenance from animals we are more sensitive to our human feelings and therefore require family around us.

For this reason charlotte had had a quiet conversation with Mary and asked her to keep me company. The following day Mary had told me about their little talk and told me that if I wanted her to help then she would, but she also respected my privacy and if I did not want her 'sticking her nose in' then she would not. I had explained the gist of the situation to Mary and she told me she would help, and so she has been following me around all week. At first it was nice to have someone to talk to about these things, and it was nice to have even numbers.

Now however I needed my own space.

I needed a drink.

I gave one last glance at Mary holding William on the floor, then shot an apologetic look at Charlotte before diving out the back door and into the woods that backed onto our house. It was the woods that kept our house separate from the rest of the town, our house was about 2 miles into the woods which was far enough away to allow us to be ourselves in the house, but close enough that people wouldn't grow suspicious. The only way for people to get to our house is a bumpy little unmade road that runs through the woods and down to a campsite about 20 miles away, although we can usually run through the woods and arrive in town quicker than any human dares to drive down the track. They always seem to be nervous about meeting another vehicle along the winding track.

The sun had already set and it was nice to be able to run at my full speed without having to be wary of humans. I can run faster than any other vampire I have ever met so usually when I go hunting or running with the others I tend to slow down a bit to allow them to keep up, but now I could run as fast as I wanted. I needed to run fast, it always seems to clear my head and give me chance to just be, without having my thoughts consumed with trying to act human or denying my thirst.

I ran through the woods and got the scent of some deer grazing near by. I switched to automatic and let my instincts take over as I chased, caught and drank.

When I had my fill I still was not ready to go home so I kept running. It was night time now and the woods were pitch black, it didn't matter to me, I could see just as well as if it had been the middle of the day, but no mortal eyes would have seen me out here. Not that any would have been looking.

I came to the edge of the woods within minutes. The rest of the town was in darkness except for the occasional street light or slither of light escaping from the odd house now and then.

I could hear her voice 2 streets away, it was probably due to the fact I had grown so attuned to it over the past few weeks, always trying to secretively listen in on conversations she had with the others and try to comprehend whether she was happy or not.

I went closer to her house, staying out of sight and away from any source of light. I could hear her voice coming from the back of the house, so in one swift movement I ran at the side of the neighbour's house, and flipped myself over the fence and into Lydia's back garden.

I looked at the windows at the back of the house all of the ones on the ground floor were in darkness and most of the upstairs windows were also black, there was one however that was letting a small amount of light escape between the floral patterned curtains. That window was where Lydia's voice was coming from.

I had never come to her house before; I had never been to any other house in this town except our house, obviously, I could just about cope with being in a school with the humans but I don't think I would fair to well if I was in someone's house. I had not planned on coming here. I would not have come if she did not intrigue me so, though that was the main reason for me to stay away from her. I just could not. I had tried at school and that had been a waste of time and apparently had hurt her feelings, although I could not quite see how.

I could still hear her voice, but I could not see her, it was driving me insane being so close but being unable to see her. I looked around the garden and spotted a tree house that was just at the same level as Lydia's bedroom window, there was a flimsy rope ladder hanging down from the branch which the house was secured to. I decided to climb the tree trunk instead. As Lydia's scent hit me I realised that she must have been here recently, maybe even earlier that day, it was strongest in the corner with the blankets and pillows. I decided it had been a very good idea to hunt before coming here, not that I had planned on coming here. I looked around and found an abundance of boxes stacked on top each other from the floor to the ceiling and old pictures pinned all over the walls. I had a closer look at the pictures and saw some of them had Lydia as a very young girl, as I was looking at the pictures I allowed my mind to wander and I realised just how much Lydia meant to me. I had never allowed myself to think of her in this way before, but now I could not help myself I just wanted to be closer to her. I sat on the floor and leant against the wall opposite the door so that I could see through the gap and into Lydia's room. She was sitting on her bed with her maths books spread out around her obviously doing her homework, and getting rather frustrated with it by the sounds of it too! I wondered how late it was if she was doing her homework it could not have been too late. There was no way of knowing but I guessed it must have been nearly midnight.

Suddenly she threw her book down and rubbed her eyes with her palm. She swiped the maths books off her bed and got a reading book from her bedside table, I could not tell what book it was because the front of the book was pointing the opposite way and I could only see the back cover.

She could not have read more than a page when she dropped the book. I was rather worried; I know how fragile humans can be. I looked closer, she was not moving at all. Could a book really hurt her that much? I was considering my options. I had no idea what I would do, what I could do if Lydia had really hurt herself.

What could I do?

Go in there and check on her?  
I would only hurt her more if I touched her, that is even if I could resist the smell of her blood, it is difficult enough to stop myself at school with people around, I would not fair well if I was alone with her, she would not fair well either.  
Going in was out of the question, so what else could I do?

Call someone?  
Who?  
Hospital?  
I could just imagine that conversation. Not a good idea to tell someone you were sitting in someone else's garden, in a tree house watching a girl in her room when you saw her get hit by a book and apparently faint. Vampire or not, I would definitely be classed as a weirdo.  
Hospital was not a good idea either.  
Call my family?  
No. I am never telling any of them that I have come here tonight. If I thought things were bad when I was talking to Lydia at school, I could just imagine what William would say to me being here.

I was having a battle with myself over what to do until I realised she must have fallen asleep. It was so odd. I hadn't seen anyone sleep in nearly a century. Well not the peaceful sleep a human has after a long day at least. I had seen the semi-coma state people are in during the early stages of transformation into a vampire, before the burning has completely taken over the body and before the heart stops, but this, this sleep that Lydia was in now was so serene I almost felt human again myself.

It is strange how time looses all meaning when you are immortal, I could have sat there staring at her for an eternity, watching her sleep, she seemed so peaceful, and I almost felt jealous of her for being able to sleep when I had not since I had been turned into this. While I was watching her sleep I had the song she was listening to at the start of drama going through my mind, I heard it perfectly even though she had not had it on very loud. I had memorized the lyrics while she had been typing them. I felt I could really relate to some of the lyrics especially the chorus; from this day on now & forever more, you'll be in my heart, No matter what they say, you'll be here in my heart, Always.

I could tell the sun would be coming up soon and I did not really want to be spotted in town at this time so I reluctantly jumped down from the tree house and ran back to my house. I decided the others did not need to know I had been out all night, and I definitely would not tell them where I had been if they did find out I had not been at home. I climbed up the tree outside the house, it was right next to my room, and jumped through the open window; I do not like using doors.

Mary was sitting on my desk staring at me; I guessed she had been waiting a long time for me to come back.

"Where have you been?" she asked in an urgent whisper that no human would ever hear, even the other vampires in the house would have struggled.

"Hunting," I sat on the sofa opposite her and tried to seem nonchalant but I do not think it had her fooled.

"Where?"

She was next to me in less than a fraction of a second, a move that would have terrified any human, but I was used to my family moving like that. She took a deep breath and I realised she thought I meant hunting people, although that would have been made obvious in the colour of my eyes.

"In the woods, I found some deer."

"And then where did you go?"

I realised it was pointless to lie to her; even if she didn't have her gift she could still smell Lydia's scent on me.

"I went to Lydia's house, but I did not go in, I swear."

Her face went deadly and I knew that she was capable of destroying me in that second.

* * *

Review please, it will convince me to keep writing!  
Thanks


End file.
